On March 14, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) issued regional export figures related to last year's international trade. After the tumble witnessed in 2009, trading increased all over the Italian territory in 2010, posting double-digit increases on year-on-year basis in almost every region. The report by ISTAT particularly underlines the performance of Italy's island regions (+51.7 percent) "due to the remarkable increase in petroleum product exports". Also, central and southern Italy recorded a growth rate superior to the national average, respectively 17.2 and 15.9 percent.
Central and southern regions lead the recovery
The regions which improved the most sharply in their exported volumes in 2010 are Sardinia, growing by 59.4 percent, Sicily (+47.6 percent), Latium (+24 percent) and Puglia (+20.2 percent). According to the report, southern Italy's exports grew by 27 percent, allowing an uptick of its share in the national figure from 10.5 percent to 11.5 percent. Focusing on the analysis of trade routes, ISTAT underscores that southern Italy's export increase was mainly due to the 35 percent growth of deliveries to non-EU countries (notably Russia, South America and Turkey). Meanwhile, the only regions which posted export increases below the national average were Liguria (+1.9 percent), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (+7.9 percent), Marche (+11.2 percent) and Lombardy (+14.1). The performance of the most industrialized region of Italy shows a vigorous revival of trading, although its share in the overall Italian export market slightly decreased from 28.2 percent to 27.8 percent.
North remains engine of Italian economy
Despite the notable performance of southern Italy, regions in the north proved themselves again to be the engine for Italian exports. In fact, according to the figures provided by ISTAT, the northwest still holds a 39.9 percent share in exports (with Lombardy accounting for 27.8 percent). The share of the northeast in overall Italian exports reached 31.3 percent, the central regions accounted for 15.8 percent, with southern Italy/island regions accounted for 11.5 percent.
*All the percentage variations are calculated year on year.
Macro region | Export 2010 (€ million) | Y-O-y change (%) |
Northeast | 105,700 | +15.4 |
Northeast | 134,843 | +14.1 |
Center | 53,445 | +17.2 |
South | 24,531 | +15.9 |
Islands | 14,442 | +51.7 |
TOTAL | 337,584 | +15.7 |