Made in Italy, export boom in the first half of 2021

Italian exports - outline Manlio Di Stefano, Undersecretary of State at Ministry of Foreign Affairs - returned to growth in the first six months of the year. At the base of this surge, which has involved also the agro-mechanical sector is not only the ability of Italian companies to propose highly innovative solutions but also the new strategy for promoting Italian products, with a stronger role for the Farnesina. Asean and Asia are the most interesting markets for our companies

In the first six months of the year, Made in Italy is on the up. The overall value of our exports reached 300 billion euros, exceeding the levels reached in 2019, a year not yet marked by the health emergency.

Highlighting the excellent performance of Italian companies on foreign markets, especially those in the agro-mechanical sector (2.9 bilion euros), was Manlio Di Stefano, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, who spoke on 19 October at the inauguration of EIMA International 2021, the world exhibition of agricultural mechanics and gardening technologies.

“The strong growth in Italian exports is due not only to the resilience of Italian companies, which have sustained strong investments in R&D to develop often cutting-edge technologies," Di Stefano said on the opening day of EIMA, "but also to a new strategy for the promotion of Made in Italy products, which began with the transfer to the Farnesina of the competences on internationalisation previously held by the Ministry of Economic Development.

Between 2019 and 2020 the funds of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this item of expenditure have more than increased tenfold, rising from 300 million to 5.4 billion," Di Stefano noted. Italian embassies abroad have thus become the pivot of internationalisation activities, also thanks to synergies with the ICE Agency and Simest.

The initiatives to support exports and promote Italian products are aimed at mature markets, where the strategy pursued is to consolidate the positions of our companies, but above all the Asean area (South East Asia and the Pacific) and the rest of the Asian continent. Italy signed a strategic partnership agreement with the ASEAN member states in 2020. The undersecretary went on to say that Italy is one of the few countries in the world that can boast of very close cooperation in this area of the world that is so important from an economic and production standpoint. Made in Italy is also looking at Africa where, however, the penetration of Italian companies faces political and financial barriers.