Piedmont, after Lombardy, is one of the regions that contributes most to the national GDP, and boasts 12 production districts in its territory, plus two technological poles. How did the export of these Made in Italy excellences go in this 2020 marked by Covid-19? The picture is drawn as usual Monitor by Intesa Sanpaolo's Studies and Research Department, which gave a snapshot of the export trend in the first six months of this year. And the answer is not comforting: by interrupting a growth that had been going on uninterruptedly since 2016, the virus caused a contraction of exports from the Piedmont districts of 22,8%, for a total of 1,3
billion euros gone up in smoke. Just after that, in 2019, the figure had reached the record of 11,4 billion euros of goods sold abroad.
In more detail, the half-year performance was conditioned by uparticularly negative second quarter (-35,9%), while in the first three months the decline was more contained (-8,7%). Overall, about 3 percentage points below the national average. Exports fell by 22,2% to mature markets and by 24,2% to new markets. There was a notable contraction in sales in Switzerland, France and the United States and the United Kingdom. Declines in exports are also recorded towards China, Hong Kong and Japan. It emerges from the analysis by single district a good resilience of the Agri-food sector and more marked difficulties for the Mechanical Engineering and Fashion sectors, with exports more than halved compared to the first half of 2019. The Textiles of Biella and the Goldsmiths of Valenza blamed the slowdown in consumption. For jewellery, the strong increase in gold prices also had an impact, which depressed world demand.
The Mechanics sector (Taps and Fittings of Cusio-Valsesia, Machine Tools and Industrial Robots of Turin, Industrial Refrigerators of Casale Monferrato and Textile Machinery of Biella) was affected by the blockages in the countries belonging to the international value chains and by the uncertainty affecting investment decisions. The Casa system, represented in Piedmont by the small Omegna household district, suffered a 21,7% drop in exports. Piedmontese agri-food districts in the first half of 2020 managed to increase exports by 3,3%, thanks to the driving effect of coffee, confectionery and chocolate from Turin (+35%, equal to 91 million euros) and Vercelli rice (+17,8%, equal to 23 million euros). The other districts of the agro-food sector recorded declines, but contained: Piedmontese hazelnuts and fruit (-1,8%), Sweets from Alba and Cuneo (-2%) and Wines from the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato (-4,7 %).
The exports of the two regional technological poles had a different trend. In the first six months of 2020, the ICT hub of Turin saw its exports grow by 2,5% (8 million euros), thanks to a particularly positive first quarter. For the Piedmont aerospace hub, exports fell by 23,7% (112 million euro). Resilience varies from industry to industry. The scenario, according to Intesa Sanpaolo, remains very uncertain and strongly conditioned by the evolution of the pandemic. However, unlike last spring, Piedmontese companies appear to be more prepared to face any restrictive measures, also helped by the fact that production in the manufacturing industry has not been stopped this time.
