Acimga reports sales decline for 2019, predicts larger drops in 2020 due to Covid-19

摘要

Acimga, the association of Italian machinery manufacturers for the printing, paper and converting industries, says that sales by its member firms in 2019 fell by 1.6 per cent year-on-year. According to Acimga, slow business on the extremely important export markets - which account for 60 per cent of overall sales-was the main reason for the negative business development in 2019.The export business in 2019 was down by 8.5 per cent compared with the previous year. On the domestic market, Italian machinery suppliers booked a nearly 10.9 per cent increase in sales, but that was not sufficient to prevent a weak overall performance in 2019. The current year is likely to be even more challenging for the Italian machinery firms. In the first quarter of 2020, before the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic was felt worldwide, the industry saw sales in the export business fall by 16.1 per cent versus the same period of the previous year. The spread of the pandemic and the resulting difficulties, such as border closures, further intensified the problem, according to Acimga. For the year 2020, the association expects sales to drop by 20-25 per cent compared with 2019. Although machinery builders were not affected by the lockdown and were able to continue production even at the peak of the outbreak in Italy, there were major disruptions to sales channels, according to Acimga.