A First Quarter of Growth Bodes Well for 2021

On April 27th, the Economic Day of FEDERTEC, the Association representing mechatronic technologies and components for the automation and control of industrial products and processes, presented the results of the sector. After a negative 2020, in the first quarter of 2021 orders in double figures: domestic orders +43.0% and foreign orders +41.5%.

On April 27th, the FEDERTEC Economic Day was held to present the results of the sector. The Federation was born from the merger of ASSIOT (Power Transmission) and ASSOFLUID (Fluid Power). In 2020, negative performances were recorded for the entire segment. Specifically, revenues were down 12.7% and 14.4% for the Fluid Power and Mechanical Power Transmission sectors, respectively, compared to the previous year. Exports suffered less: -11.2% for Fluid Power and -13.2% for Mechanical Power Transmission, figures that nevertheless represent an improvement in foreign market penetration, with an export percentage of 60.8%. Domestic deliveries also decreased less markedly than imports and consequently the ability of Italian companies to control the domestic market improved: the Domestic Deliveries/Domestic Market ratio gained 0.5 percentage points, reaching 55%.
Overall, in the year 2020, the entire industry recorded a 13.7 percent drop in sales, worth just under 10 billion euros.

A first quarter in countertrend

The first quarter of 2021, however, bucks the trend: results are decidedly positive, especially orders, and signs of recovery are evident in all sectors: Fluid Power sees a 44.8% growth in orders compared to the same period of the previous year and Power Transmission scores a +42.6%, again compared to the first quarter of 2020. “The trend for 2021 will certainly depend on the outcome of the vaccination campaign in the world, which may determine the relaxation of containment measures, restoring momentum to consumption and therefore to production, reactivating the virtuous circle of the economy – said Fausto Villa, President of FEDERTEC – but probably Italy must wait until the end of 2022 to return to pre-crisis levels. However, caution is needed; let’s not forget that the comparison refers to the first quarter of 2020 when the impact of the pandemic was already in the air”.

FEDERMACCHINE is optimistic about the future

During the event, FEDERMACCHINE presented the preliminary 2020 figures for the capital goods sector, which confirmed the general trend of the sector represented by FEDERTEC. Stefania Pigozzi, coordinator of the FEDERMACCHINE statistics group commented: “2020 was also a difficult year for the capital goods sector. However, the drop in turnover was more contained than in the 2008/2009 crisis and this is true for exports too.

There are two important indicators to consider: the export propensity of our companies, which is always strong, and import penetration. These two indicators indicate a sort of equilibrium in recent years. This leads to the conclusion that the effect of the pandemic has not been particularly pronounced and that our companies have demonstrated an excellent ability to react on the markets at an international level”.