In April, Italian exports recorded the first drop on an annual basis (-1,7%) since January 2010. The slowdown mainly affected sales to Eurozone countries, which alone account for 42,5% of Italian exports. Among the main customers of Italian exports over the last twenty years to have lost weight was especially Germany: in 1991 the sales of goods from the Bel Paese in Germany covered around 21% of total exports, while today they do not much exceed 13%.
For countries outside the EU 27, the available data allow us to arrive at May, the month during which a 14,1% year-on-year growth was recorded. However, this value hides a substantial drop in sales to China (-11,8% between January and May). Sales to the Asian giant have been falling continuously for five months on an annual basis. By virtue of this trend, the Chinese share of Italian exports in the first four months of the year fell to 2,3% from 2,5% in the previous year. For India, May's decline is the seventh consecutive year-on-year.
La distribution of Italian exporting companies continues to remain very biased towards the small size: the majority (61,8% of the total, equal to 126.968 units) generate no more than 75 euros in turnover on international markets. There are only 50 companies that sell products worth over 1.038 million euros abroad (0,5% of the total), but they account for more than 50% of the value exported by the country.
Between individual countries it is Germany the main pole of attraction: in fact, there are 68.648 companies that sell goods in the country, for an average value that is confirmed as the highest: 715 euros per operator. France comes in second place (67.047 companies), followed by Switzerland and Spain. In terms of the amount of the average value exported, France once again appears behind Germany followed by the United States and the United Kingdom, but substantial values are also observed in some emerging markets, including Turkey (543 thousand euros on average) and Russia (440 thousand euros). In most cases, however, the degree of dispersion is very high, and the average values are not representative of the real turnover of the companies involved. This phenomenon is more common especially in France, Switzerland, the United States and Turkey.
Attachments: Focus no. 27 – 6 July 2012.pdf
