ECONOMIC OUTLOOK ON THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN TREVISO - SECOND QUARTER OF 2011

During the second quarter of this year as well, exports from the manufacturing sector in Treviso kept on playing an essential role on the recovery path. This is what emerges from the usual economic analysis carried out by Treviso Chamber of Commerce on a sample of 460 enterprises that collectively account for nearly 19,000 employees.

Indeed, the foreign turnover registered 7.1% year-over-year growth (like three months ago), against total turnover increasing by only 3.6% (it was +5.9% three months ago). Results on international markets are still more significant if we consider the period analysed: during the second quarter of 2010, local companies had already restarted to look at foreign demand.

Within the manufacturing industry, good performance (+8.2%) was marked by foreign turnover of the wood and furniture segment, after a poor performance in the previous quarter (+4.1%).

External orders increased less but still positively: year-on-year growth was 4.1% compared to 6% in the previous quarter: the seasonality of textiles and clothing must be considered in this context. As for machinery, foreign orders are still growing by 10% compared to the same period one year ago, while they increased less (+8%) in the wood and furniture sector and metal work products, which, however, were doing well in the quarter analysed.

Domestic orders showed very different trends: they grew by 4.4% compared to the first quarter of 2011 (which might be a consequence of transferring orders along the production chain), but the year-over-year change was very low: +1.5% (it was +2.3% in the previous quarter). Therefore, the Italian market remains quite flat, even decreasing in the wood and furniture (-1.7%) compared to one year ago. In this same sector, despite recovery in foreign markets, the above-mentioned trend also influenced the order backlog: the estimated production timeline only covered less than one month, while the provincial average is 46 days and the machinery sector can guarantee 81 days.

The dichotomy between successful foreign trends and poor internal performance caused companies to be  cautious as for production: it marked a 5% bounce-back compared to the previous quarter, with further growth in the capacity utilization rate, from 72 to 75%.

Nevertheless, the pace of growth of production in companies with 10 employees or more is getting steady at approximately +2.5%. On the other hand, microenterprises (2 to 9 employees) got back into negative change (-2.3%), after achieving satisfactory stability in the previous quarters. Also considering the weak terms of comparison (in Q2 2010, to which year-over-year change is referred, production had just begun to recover after the worst periods of the crisis), the analysis confirmed that linear recovery to pre-crisis levels was quite unlikely,  which also explained the lack of positive signs as for employment. (continue)