Foreign trade data in the first three months of the year 2024

Source: Studies and Statistic Office of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso Belluno|Dolomites

Same trends also for Treviso (-6.3%) and Belluno (-4.6%). In particular, the fashion system suffers in Treviso, machinery is down in both provinces.

Treviso,18 June 2024

President Mario Pozza’s comment

In the first quarter of 2024, exports from the Veneto, Treviso and Belluno regions were negative on an annual basis,- commented Mario Pozza, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso and Belluno|Dolomites. – A similar negative trend is recorded for exports from Lombardy and Emilia. It is therefore a result that must be placed in the broader context of a weakness in international demand: in addition to the still open conflicts, there is the drop in the purchasing power of families and the uncertainty about future investments, penalised by still high interest rates, despite a first sign of reduction by the ECB.

The negative data for the first quarter of 2024 are, moreover, emphasised, –  the President continues, – by the short observation period as well as by a comparison period (the first quarter of 2023) that is still largely positive, with variations sustained, at the time, by rising prices.

In light of this, it is necessary to take note of the numbers and interpret them with the right tare, – Pozza continues: Veneto’s exports record a negative variation of -5.1% in value, which however becomes -1.4% in quantity. Consider that a year ago, in the first quarter of 2023, the year-on-year variation in exported quantities was -6.7% (foreign orders were already down sharply in that period), against, however, a growth in values that remained at +8.5%.

These data, – the President comments, – make it very clear how the current export dynamic is still conditioned by the concatenation of recent shocks: weakness in international demand following a post-pandemic effervescence situation, price lists on a rollercoaster ride (yesterday rising to transfer downstream higher input costs , today normalising), lower consumer purchasing power due to inflation itself. So much so that if we compare the current export value of Veneto (19.9 billion euro) with that of the first quarter of 2019 (‘year of grace’ far from the several shocks), we note an increase of +25.8% (admittedly, in current values).

These tares should not be intended in consolatory terms, – the President emphasises. Some sectors show negative trends in terms of both values and quantities. This is the case of machinery, the first export item for the Veneto region, which, compared to the first quarter of 2023, falls with the same intensity both in terms of value (-5.3%) and quantity (-7.6%).

At a territorial level, exports from Treviso are down by -6.3% in the current quarter, against +5.4% last year, and those from Belluno by -4.6%, against +17.4% last year.

Machinery, which is also the first item in Treviso exports, shows a trend decrease of -4%, which however should be compared to the still very strong growth (+19.8%) recorded last year. It is a different story for the fashion system which, on the other hand, experiences a much more accentuated drop: it is -16.2% for textiles-clothing, and -21.2% for footwear. With these declines, the recovery of 2023 is thwarted: the two sectors are below the results of the first quarter of 2019 (-6.6% for textiles-clothing; -10.4% for footwear).

For Belluno, eyewear is holding up, with exports slightly below last year’s values (-1.3%). On the other hand, machinery is doing badly, both compared to last year (-29.1%) and to 2019 (-7.3%).

We are moving through uncertainty, – Pozza concludes, – it is important that companies equip themselves to navigate through this uncertainty, adopting the most modern strategic, tactical and predictive management tools. This is the direction in which the Chamber’s new call for tenders is going, which makes EUR 1 million available precisely to support provincial companies in the dual transition from digital to green.

The National Scenario

Istat has released the national, regional and provincial trade data for the first three months of 2024.

The weakness of international demand, which has also been highlighted for several quarters by the various surveys on manufacturing, inevitably affects Italian exports, which are down by -2.8% in value compared to the same period in 2023. It is now since the second quarter of last year that exports have recorded a quarterly trend variation with a negative sign. The last increase was in the first quarter of 2023 when it grew by +9.7%. In the change of sign and the different intensity of the variations, the transition from an inflationary phase to an opposite phase of falling prices also comes into play.

The national picture averages rather heterogeneous territorial dynamics, amplified by the short period under observation: there is a very negative performance in Central Italy, in particular in Marche (-55.5%), conditioned by the contraction of exports of pharmaceutical products to China (-90.2%), and the effect of the comparison with the first quarter of 2023, when exceptional sales of these products to that country were recorded. This drop, as Istat comments, contributes 2.8 percentage points to the decline in national exports. In contrast, Friuli-Venezia Giulia has a positive performance (+9.1%) thanks to the nautical sector, Abruzzo’s exports are supported by the automotive sector, and Calabria’s exports (+26.9%) are supported by food and chemical products.

Apart from these and a few other singular situations, the most relevant data concerns the three regions (Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto) that produce more than half of national exports and that, for the quarter in question, unfortunately share a drop in foreign sales compared to the same period of the previous year: in order, Emilia-Romagna (-3.0%), Lombardy (-3.4%), Veneto (-5.1%). A further cross-regional figure is the drop in sales of industrial machinery.

The slowdown in international demand can also be clearly perceived on the import side: in the period from January to March 2024, domestic imports are down by -10.1% year-on-year, when they were growing by +2.2% in Q1 2023.

The Regional Scenario

As we have just said, in the first quarter of 2024 Veneto exports recorded a negative variation of -5.1% in value, which however became -1.4% in quantity. Consider that a year ago, in the first quarter of 2023, the year-on-year variation in exported quantities was -6.7% (foreign orders were already heavily down in that period), but growth in values remained at +8.5%.

These data make it very clear how the current export dynamic is still conditioned by the concatenation of recent shocks: weak international demand following a post-pandemic effervescence situation, price lists on a rollercoaster ride (yesterday on the rise to transfer downstream higher input costs, today in the process of normalisation), lower consumer purchasing power due to inflation itself and, last but not least, terms of comparison that are themselves anomalous on a statistical level. So much so that if we compare the current export value of Veneto (19.9 billion euro) with that of the first quarter of 2019 (‘year of grace’ far from the various shocks), we note an increase of +25.8% (admittedly, in current values).

These tares should not be interpreted in consolatory terms. Some sectors show negative trends in terms of both values and quantities. This is the case of machinery, the first export item for the Veneto region, which, compared to the first quarter of 2023, fell with the same intensity both in terms of value (-5.3%) and quantity (-7.6%). Last year, the year-on-year increase was +18.8% in value against stable sales in quantity.

The same sign but different intensity is also observed for the dynamics of transport equipment and components, a sector that at regional level includes mainly the automotive sector but also shipbuilding. For this sector, exports are down by -12.8% in value (against +9.8% last year) and -5.3% in quantity (against -1.8% the previous year).

A reduction in sales in terms of value and quantity is also observed for the fashion system, although with a different deceleration between the two components: Veneto’s exports of clothing and footwear fell overall by -9.1% in value and -2.7% in quantity. Last year they could still afford to grow in values (+5.3%) against a negative trend in exported quantities (-8.8%).

A similar asymmetry in the dynamics between values and quantities is evident for metallurgical products and metal carpentry: exports dropped by -14.8% in values against a -3.7% in quantities.

On the other hand, the balance was positive for food and beverages: the latter grew by +6.3% in value in the first portion of the year 2024. For foodstuffs, after last year’s export growth was sustained by prices (+20.8%), the quarter under review saw a substantial hold in values (+1.3%). For the sector as a whole, quantities also grew (+2.2%).

Exports also held steady for eyewear, the second largest regional export item, for which the value of sales increased slightly on a trend basis in the quarter under review (+1.5%, compared to +13.4% last year).

Looking at the markets, the value of Veneto’s exports was affected in particular by the drop in sales to the German market (-11.3%), to which are added, for the EU 27 area in particular, France (-3.7%) and Spain (-3.1%). Also decreasing the exports to the non-EU27 area, to which the US (-6.6%) and British (-5.0%) market declines weighed heavily.

Always bearing in mind the limited period (first three months of the year), which tends to amplify the results, the return of the inflationary pressure and the ‘normalisation of prices’ are even more appreciable on the import side. In the first quarter of 2024, regional purchases from abroad fell by -11.6% year-on-year in terms of value (last year the change was slightly above stable), on the other hand, imports in quantity rose by +2.8% (compared with -1.8% the previous year). This trend was influenced in particular by the purchasing policies for energy products, which are included under the heading “mineral extraction products from quarries and mines”, for which the value of purchases rose from 1.5 billion in Q1 2023 to almost 760 million in the quarter under review.

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Translated by Cecilia Flaccavento
Intern at the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso – Belluno|Dolomites