Acimac: downturn has bottomed out in 2010

 
 “The fall in turnover suffered by the sector from late 2008 through 2009 finally bottomed out in 2010,” observed Pietro Cassani, Chairman of the Italian ceramic machinery and equipment manufacturers’ association Acimac, commenting on the preliminary figures for 2010.

In the twelve months of 2010, the sector’s turnover is estimated to have risen slightly to 1.242 billion euro, up 1.2% on 2009.

This is an encouraging result that has also confirmed the international scale of the Italian ceramic machinery industry, which generates more than 75% of its turnover from exports.
The strong international presence of Italian companies, who remain the world leaders in terms of process innovation, has enabled the Italian ceramic machinery manufacturers to benefit in recent months from the recovery under way in a number of important regions, including the Middle East, Asia and South America. These regions, noted Cassani, “will play a crucial role in maintaining our world leadership in the next few years”.

The initial forecasts for 2011 are also positive.

 “Our companies are expecting an initial recovery in world markets in 2011, allowing us to partly make up for the severe losses suffered in 2009 when the sector’s turnover plummeted by 33%. We are anticipating total turnover growth of between 10% and 15%,” Cassani concluded.