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The Italian jewelery industry is in excellent shape. This is confirmed by the numbers of the fourth edition of the economic survey carried out by the Club degli Orafi Italia, in collaboration with the Studies and Research Department of Intesa Sanpaolo, and presented at VicenzaOro, the sector fair running until 12 September. In the first five months of 2023, exports from the gold and jewelery sector rose by 9.3% compared to the same period in 2022, for a value of 4.36 billion euros. And in the first half of the year the turnover rose by 10.2%, a better percentage than that of the fashion system (+7.2%) and than the average of the Italian manufacturing sector (+3%). In 2022, the sector’s turnover had risen by 22.1%, to 13.2 billion euros.
The survey was carried out in June with the aim of gathering expectations for 2023 in terms of turnover and investments and to delve deeper into the competitive challenges that the sector is facing. The statistics and findings therefore confirm that after the brilliant results of the last two years, the goldsmith sector will also have very positive results in 2023. The high competitiveness on international markets is confirmed as central: in the period examined, exports of gold jewelery exceeded 4 billion euros, up 9% in value and 2% in quantity.
Expectations in terms of turnover for the whole of 2023 are also confirmed as positive, with 39% of respondents expecting an increase in turnover with a percentage substantially aligned with the survey at the end of 2022 (44% of the sample). The most significant revision concerned the internal market by smaller companies: if in December 36% expected growth, in June the percentage dropped to 23%. On the contrary, the expectations of medium-large companies with reference to foreign markets were revised upwards (percentage increased from 61% to 67% of the sample).
A further factor supporting the competitiveness of the sector can be found in the prospects for investments: one in three respondents indicated an increase in investments compared to the previous year, with peaks of 42% for larger companies; the push factors that will most support these evolutions concern the stimuli of the competitive context (indicated by 40% of respondents), the trend of demand (37% for foreign demand and 34% for domestic demand) and the purchase of machinery and technologies (31%).
As regards the districts, of the first three to increase its exports the most in the period taken into consideration is that of Alessandria, with the fulcrum of Valenza, which recorded +24.4%. Followed by Arezzo (+8.4%) and Vicenza (+6.9%).