As announced by UCIMU, the Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machine Tools, in Q3 2011 the Italian machine tools order index increased by 58.2 percent year on year, reaching 73.9 points (base 2005=100).
Accordingly, the most remarkable factor is represented by the revival of domestic orders intake, up 96.8 percent year on year, although the absolute value remains low at 30.3 points. Also, foreign orders intake performed well, increasing by 32.3 percent to 114.3 points.
Giancarlo Losma, chairman of UCIMU, commented, "Despite the current uncertain context, the Italian machine tools industry partially recovered the ground lost during the 2008-2009 global crisis, sharply increasing its activity in foreign markets". In H1 2011, in fact, Italian machine tool exports increased by 27.8 percent year on year.
Mr. Losma continued, "Moreover the revival of domestic demand is the fact emerging from the third quarter report. Clearly, the absolute value of the index is still depressed, but the turnround in such a difficult context feeds our hopes for the forthcoming period."