A National Statistical Survey carried out by the UCIMA reveals that 11 industrial sectors are producing a total turnover of 27,599 million euros.
Turnover from this segment generated on the international markets comes in at 83.1% - 4,989 million euros and sales on the domestic market at 16.9% - 1,014 million euros.
The biggest sector is food (38.6% of total turnover) but cosmetics, chemicals and other sectors (including tobacco and tissues) are close behind with significant market share.
"This year the economic indicators available to us and export trends suggest an additional increase in business volumes in the next few months," says Chairman of UCIMA, Giuseppe Lesce.
In terms of turnover levels, a strong preponderance came from small companies with those with turnover of up to 5 million euros accounting for 69.4% of the total.
Meanwhile, only 6.8% of companies have a turnover greater than 25 million euros, even if they generate the largest chunk (63.8%) of the overall turnover in the sector. The majority are located in Emilia Romagna, followed by Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont.
Prosperous technologies
The biggest-selling technology is revealed to be sealing machines with a 38.2% market share (2,291 million euros), followed by Filling and dosing, sealing and control machines, which account for 26.2% of total turnover with 1,575 million euros (84.5% of which deriving from exports).
The rest of the turnover is equally distributed among the other types of machines, led by those for secondary and end of line packaging.
The propensity of each business size class per single geographical area to export is also extremely diversified.
While the European Union remains the main export area for all classes, its overall importance gradually diminishes, dropping from 49.6% for the first business class (up to 2.5 million euros) to 30.6% for the sixth (over 50 million euros).
This trend is inverted for the geographical areas furthest from Italy (Asia and South America above all), with the biggest and most structured companies reliant on the EU for the greatest proportion of their exports.