The trade association representing Italy’s machine tool builders reported that group’s third-quarter 2014 new-order volume rose 7.8% over the 3Q 2013 total, an improvement attributed to overall strong demand for their products, in the domestic market and from abroad.
The economics department maintained by UCIMU-Sistemi per Produrre (whose members design and manufacture machine tools as well as automation products) noted that new machine-tool orders from foreign buyers increased by 5.3% compared to the July-September 2013 period, while domestic orders rose 19.1% during that time.
Italy has one of the largest machine-tool sectors in global economy, and the current success represents a rebound from the 2009 global recession, and the subsequent EU recession that
"The increase recorded by this last assessment is certainly a positive indication for Italian machine tool manufacturers, also because it is the fourth consecutive month of growth as far as orders are concerned,” according to Luigi Galdabini, president of UCIMU. “If 2014 confirms itself as the year of the inversion in trend, one must still remember that the recovery remains weak and uncertain."
Galdabini was less enthusiastic about the volume of domestic activity for his group’s machinery, though he used the results to credit recent changes in Italian financial policies that provide more tax-credit for new capital equipment purchases. Further, he used the occasion to advocate for an extension of those policies.
The UCIMU 3Q result follows a strong performance during the second quarter for the members of UCIMU, and match similarly positive results reported last month by the German machine tool builders association.
In North America, by contrast, new orders for machine tools have been steady but less than robust throughout the current year, with totals from September (including results from IMTS 2014) yet to be released.
