The Industry

2022

The production of woodworking technology is Italy’s ace in the hole. The offer ranges from primary operation equipment for raw materials, to surface finishing systems, to secondary operation plants for solid wood and wood-based panels.

After the Coronavirus epidemic lockdown, the world expected a new global economic recession. Then, in 2021, the industry went back to normal, meaning the situation before the sanitary crisis that lasted throughout 2020.

Looking back at the 2020 events, we can realize what we lost during the lockdown. The woodworking machinery industry was already showing signs of weakness, and companies had to make big efforts to return to pre-Covid levels, efforts that paid back later on.
So, 2021 was a year of restart and redemption, with favorable conditions for the growth of this segment, not only in Italy, but also for the main competitors which Italian companies must face on a daily basis.

Reviewing 2022, instead, we see that companies have done their best to replicate the success of the previous year, and partially they succeeded to, although the period was really complicated, with 2021 records as term of comparison, combined with the tail of the pandemic, the Russian invasion in Ukraine, the increase of energy prices, the difficult provisioning of raw materials and the closure of some significant markets. Looking at positive factors, the market was supported by strong incentives offered by the national authorities to Italian “customer companies”, who had the opportunity to renovate their equipment fleet.

Starting from production, in 2022 the Italian industry of woodworking machinery and tools reached a value of 2,646 million euro, up by 4.6% from 2021. Considering the critical factors mentioned above, this result is more than positive, and once again, it shows that Italian companies can react strategically and brilliantly to troubles.

Both the export and the domestic market achieved positive results, with the former up by 3.9%, as evidence of the substantial stability of foreign markets. The domestic market, supported by public incentives, gave a significant contribution to the industry growth, while import, up by 5.3%, once again showed that the competitiveness of foreign products remains high.
Nevertheless, the balance trade, i.e. the difference between export and import, is still largely positive (1,551 million euro); this result indicates that export still represents a predominant share of Italian production, and the mechanical engineering is a sector that significantly contributes to Italy’s positive trade balance.