It is a picture of lights and shadows that emerges from reading the provincial foreign trade data released a few days ago. In the third quarter of 2014, district exports continued to grow (+2,2% the trend variation), but showed signs of a slowdown, due to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis and, more generally, to the slowdown in new markets . Thanks to 19 consecutive quarters of growth, district exports between January and September 2014 still reached the new record amount of 64,6 billion euros, 2,2 billion more than in 2013.
This is an extraordinary result, certified by a growth rate that in the first nine months of the year was higher than that of Italian (+3,5% vs. 1,6%) and German (+3,5%) manufacturing vs. 2,1%). United States, Switzerland, Spain and United Kingdom they have been the driving force behind the districts' exports: in these four markets, sales increased by 1,2 billion euros in nine months (+8,4%), more than half of the overall growth in district exports. Thanks to the driving force of these markets, some of the most important Italian district areas stood out in terms of intensity and size of growth, such as the leather goods and footwear of Florence, the eyewear of Belluno, the goldsmith of Valencia, followed by the tiles of Sassuolo. However, some non-positive signals also emerge from the analysis of foreign trade data.
Most of the main district productions closed the third quarter in positive territory. However, only the districts specialized in household appliances have maintained a good growth rate, recording a tendential progress of 9,1%, which in any case leaves them far from pre-crisis levels. More contained growth rates ranging between just under 2% and 3,5% were recorded by the other main district productions: mechanics (+1,8%), furniture (+2,6%), and building materials (+2,7%), consumer goods of the fashion system (+2,8%), intermediate goods of the fashion system (+3,4%). In this context the number of district areas that suffered a drop in exported values rose to 58 (out of a total of 144 districts monitored). Exports from districts suffered in the new markets, where the drop in exports was equal to 1% on a trend basis in the third quarter of 2014. The slowdown recorded on the Chinese market (+2,2%, from +9,9, XNUMX% of the first three months of the year) and, above all, the heavy losses suffered in Ukraine and Russia.
In this area, around 350 million euros of district exports were lost in the first nine months of the year. The critical issues present on the Russian market will not be resolved in the next few months: the strong depreciation of the ruble, also caused by the collapse in oil prices, will take its toll. The United States will continue to be the engine of district growth. Good deals will also be present in Asia, although the latter is expected to slow down further. Help for district growth should come from the depreciation of the euro and the (modest) recovery of European domestic demand. However, the risks remain numerous and high: the failure to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, the growing difficulties of the Chinese economy, the implications of the strong dollar on emerging countries, the problems of debt reduction in the Eurozone, the effects of the collapse of the oil on the stability of some producing countries.
Attachments: district monitors_January 2015.pdf
