ITALY – The Italian association of manufacturers of machinery for wood processing performed its quarterly industry survey and detected several market trends.

Most importantly, the external markets showed an expansion, while the domestic market continues to shrink. In the last quarter of 2013, Italian machinery manufacturers reported growth in incoming orders to foreign markets of 7.3%, while incoming orders in the domestic market decreased by 5.7%. The good news is that combined, the industry grew by 4.8%.

Another important trend extracted from the survey conducted by Acimall’s research department, was the increased confidence of the interviewees. According to the sample, 36% of Italian machinery manufacturers forecast an increase in production for 2014, stable production is expected by 41% of them, and only 23% expected a decline in production.