ITALY - New orders for Italian woodworking machinery continued to weaken in the second quarter of 2019 (2Q-2019).

According to the quarterly statistics produced by the industry association Acimall, domestic business was down 36.5 percent compared to the previous year while orders from abroad fell by 7.1 percent. Overall, this resulted in an order drop of 14.4 percent.

In the 1Q-2019 domestic orders at -14.5 percent had declined more sharply than exports that stood at -10.2 percent, reducing total incoming orders by 11.0 percent. With the drop in 2Q-2019, the order intake of the Italian woodworking machine manufacturers dropped for the fifth quarter in a row; recording single digit losses in the second (-9.9 percent), third (-7.7 percent) and fourth (-3.2 percent) quarter of 2018, and double digit loses in the first and second quarter of 2019.

Estimates of future business development have again deteriorated slightly compared with the first quarter. The domestic market is perceived as more difficult as 19 percent anticipate further declines in the domestic market, 65 percent with a stable situation and 6 percent expect an improvement. In export business, 18 percent of the companies surveyed believe that an improvement is possible and 29 percent fear a decline, while 53 percent expect a stable market.