Italian tiles enjoy first-half recovery

09/10/06 - The Italian ceramic tile industry enjoyed a strong start to 2006.
Even before the good results of Cersaie, the Italian producers closed the first half of the year with an increase in sales in foreign markets: +3.5% in volumes and +9.07% in value (respectively 208 million sq.m and 2.2 billion euro).
Demand was driven by non-EU countries (+7.7% in volumes, +14.29% in value), while the EU-25 area saw growth in value (+5.09%) but a slight fall in volumes (-0.77%).

Sales of Italian tiles increased in Eastern European countries, especially Russia which received 2.9 million square metres of tiles (+34.66%) worth 51.1 million euro (+46.42%). Increases in imports were also registered in Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Poland. In general, sales in European countries outside the EU-25 area rose by 8.56% in volumes and 20.13% in value.

Italian tiles also saw an increase in sales in the United States. In the first six months of the year, a total of 34.3 million sq.m of tiles were shipped to the USA (+1.53%) corresponding to a value of 385.8 million euro (+11.53%).


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