THE INTENSITY OF THE CRISIS FALLS AND INVESTMENT CONTINUES:
SIGNS OF RECOVERY ARE EXPECTED FOR 2010
With 2009 a truly delicate year closed for Italy's and Piemonte's economic system, during which many difficulties had a major impact on manufacturing companies and gradually assumed the appearance of a structural and generalised crisis of the entire local production system.
In the 1st quarter of the year, in fact, the
after-effects of the recession begun in
2008 reached worrying levels in all the
European economies, with serious
decreases in national GDP: between
January and March virtually all the
European countries suffered downturns,
with an average in the Eurozone
of -5.1%, while the Italian gross
domestic product fell by 6.2%, with
only Germany showing a worse result
in Europe (-6.7%). Again in the following
quarters the effects of the crisis
continued to rage in our country's economic
structure, although calming
down slightly compared to the early
months of the year, confirming the
forecast made by economists who saw
the 1st quarter as the lowest point. The
variations in the gross domestic products
of all the countries then began to
show a slight recovery, reaching -3%
for Italy in the 4th quarter, thus giving n
annual average of -5%, against the -4%
recorded in the Eurozone, while in
Piemonte the figures forecast for al
2009 show a variation of -5.1% compared
to 2008.
This trend is confirmed by the data in
the 153a Indagine congiunturale sull'industria
manifatturiera piemontese run by
Unioncamere Piemonte on a sample of
997 industrial companies in Piemonte,
for a total of 91,586 employees and a
value of € 50.6 billion. In the 1st quarter
2009, in fact, industrial production
in Piemonte recorded a drop of -21.4%
compared to the same quarter in the
previous year, confirming January-
March as the blackest period of recent
years. Again in this case, however, the
following quarters show signs of a
timid recovery, going from -19.4% and
-14.8% recorded in the 2nd and 3rd
quarters, to a more encouraging -6% in
the last period of the year, thus setting
at -15.4% the overall annual variation
in Piemonte's industrial production.
Towards the end of the year the other indicators also showed encouraging positive signs: in the 4th quarter both domestic and foreign orders grew by over 4% compared to the previous period, an encouraging sign after the slowdown at the start of the year; in the same way, the level of use of plants seems to have increased constantly over the various periods, settling around 60% at the end of the year. The trend in company sales was instead still negative. After the alarming variations in the trend of -20.93% in the 1st quarter and -21.69% in the 2nd quarter, in the second half of the year there seems to be an upward movement, recording - 9.5% in the last quarter.
INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION IN PIEMONTE
% variation in production compared to the same quarter of the previous year
The sudden halt for the region's manufacturing fabric stemmed from the disappointing results evident in the first three months of 2009 in all the main industrial sectors in Piemonte and in all provinces. Means of transport, a historically important segment of the region's economy, has appeared as a key component in all quarters of the overall result: thus, while in the first period of the year it showed a fall of 38.8% compared to the first quarter of 2008, in the course of the year the figure improved step by step, reaching +6.4% at the end of the year. The recovery of engineering and metal production was instead slower, recording negative variations in the 4th quarter of respectively -20% and -11% compared to the same quarter of the previous year, while in the period of January- March they fell to -27% and -22%. The first signs of recovery were seen for foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco products, which in the three previous quarters had suffered drops in production lower than other sectors.
The first quarter of 2009 also turned
out to be particularly unsatisfactory in
all of the region's provinces, with falls
in industrial production of over 25% in
the provinces of Torino, Asti and
Biella. Again in this case, however, in
the course of the year the situation progressively
improved in all provinces
(with the exceptions of the two sharp
downturns in the provinces of Vercelli
and Verbania in respectively the 2nd and
3rd quarters). In the 4th quarter, the variations
recorded in the eight provinces
of Piemonte were still negative, but
much more encouraging compared to
the start of the year: Asti had the worst
result (-10.1%), where, however, it had
seen a figure of -26.3% at the beginning
of the year; it was followed by
Vercelli and Verbania with -9.4% and
-9.3% and Torino, where only -7.3%
was reached, instead. In conclusion,
the figures for the provinces of
Biella, Novara, Cuneo and Alessandria
are more encouraging, all between
-4 and -3%.
Source: Unioncamere Piemonte, 153a Indagine congiunturale sull'industria manifatturiera piemontese
The first signs of recovery are therefore
expected in 2010: forecasts see
+0.8% for Piemonte's GDP. The climate
of expectations in the business
world both internationally and locally
is also improving. Already in the 3rd
quarter of 2009, Piemonte's entrepreneurs
had expressed less unfavourable
forecasts than in the previous quarters
and in the 4th quarter of the year,
although the balance between optimists
and pessimists stayed negative
for most indicators, the signs of a possible
favourable change in the short
term can be glimpsed.
Furthermore, the Unioncamere survey brings out how 2009 was, on the whole, a year that confirmed our region's manufacturing firms' propensity for investment, even though all the indicators of the economic situation felt the impact over the year of the worsening of the overall framework.
77% of the companies interviewed
stated they had made investments in
the year just closed: a share slightly
lower than the previous year, when
78% declared that they had made
investments. In 2009, therefore, businesses
chose to acquire machinery and
equipment (76.3% of companies),
computers and electronic systems
(30.5% of companies) and to invest in
research and development (23.9%).
This last figure seems important as
investments in innovation have always
been a formidable springboard for the
development of the competitiveness of
the local economic system. The reasons
that drive companies to invest are
mainly the replacement of obsolete
plant and machinery, the need to
improve the efficiency of production
processes and the desire to increase the
quality of products; it should instead
be highlighted how, compared to previous
years, both investments made to
increase production capacity and those
for the introduction of new products,
declined progressively.
Of the many finance channels, companies in Piemonte still prefer, for most of their investments, self-funding, followed by bank loans, while other sources of finance seem a minor factor. Given the importance of the collaboration between banks and business at such a critical time, in which SMEs above all need financial support to be able to continue to invest and maintain or increase their own level of competitiveness, it was felt useful to ask companies if they had seen a tightening of the conditions demanded by banks in the last few months. Over 70% of businesses replied that they had not perceived a worsening of relations with banks in the last six months of 2009. For the 30% that had instead felt a toughening of conditions set by banks the main reasons indicated were the refusal to grant new loans and the increase in the margin applied to the financing granted.