The foreign markets for Italian tiles

The analysis of the trends in the various world markets reveals a strong recovery in exports to Western Europe, the main export market for Italian tiles where sales rose by 5.3% in 2014 to 156 million sq.m following two years of contraction. +

Sales also increased in the NAFTA region (up 2.5% to a total of 42 million sq.m), in the Balkans (15 million sq.m, +4.9%) and in the Far East (16 million sq.m, +8.5%).

The contractions were virtually negligible in other geographical areas where export volumes are still very low. Sales dropped from 38 to 37 million sq.m in Central and Eastern Europe (-2.2%), remained at around 6 million sq.m in Latin America (-5.4%), and remained at around 12 million sq.m in the Gulf states (-1.3%) and in the North Africa and Middle East region (-4.2%).