A real collapse, that of the Italian Legno Arredo macrosystem, which in five-year period 2007-2012 it lost 39% in terms of value, seeing consumption fall from 33,8 to 20,6 billion euros, mainly due to the 17,6% drop in purchases on the domestic market, according to data communicated at the press conference of FederlegnoArredo, which was pulling the strings of the last year.
Another sector decimated by the crisis, therefore, and brought to its knees by the fall in real household incomes, with the consequent drop in consumption, a topic on which he focused the president of FederlegnoArredo Roberto Snaidero: “People no longer consume: taxes are oppressive, young people are unable to access credit. Abroad, on the other hand, the banks help them to access mortgages, thus favoring the return to the purchase of furniture. It is important to understand that if construction does not move, growth cannot return and at the moment there are thousands of unsold apartments”.
The decline in imports of products from abroad, then, is another testimony of a general crisis in the sector, in which the only positive note, in 2012, comes from exports which keep pacedespite the slowdown in EU markets risking compromising the 10% growth in extra-EU sales.
The figures on turnover are dramatic, going from 42,5 billion in 2007 to 28,5 in 2012 (-33%). In this period, more than ten thousand companies have closed, for a total of 51.651 employees. Nearly a quarter of these companies, 2.400 of 8.200 jobs lost, closed in 2012.
The forecasts for 2013 are also gloomy, with the risk of a further worsening of the domestic market, to which could be added a slowdown in global demand. For Snaidero, it is necessary to relaunch consumption: "The FederlegnoArredo proposal, presented to the Ministry of Economic Development, is include furnishings among the works eligible for the 50% deduction, already planned for building renovations". A measure in this sense, according to the president of FederlegnoArredo, would lead to a 20% increase in national consumption, giving "some oxygen back to businesses after 5 very tough years".
