India, new unlocking for Italian and European instrumental mechanics

Sace, Assolombarda and Ispi conference: Asian subcontinent alternative to diversify business

<New Delhi now represents the world's fifth largest economy with a value of $3.5 trillion according to 2022 GDP figures, accounting for as much as 3.4 percent of global GDP, surpassing the United Kingdom. And all Made in Italy sectors recorded double-digit export growth in 2022, surpassing even pre-pandemic values>. These are the key data that explain why even Sace (a company controlled by the Italian government of insurance and financial services for business exports) suggested yesterday to entrepreneurs - at a conference in Milan with Ispi and Assolombarda - to pay more attention to the Indian market.

India is one of the economies with the greatest potential for European and Italian companies, according to Sace economists, in a context in which <old and new geopolitical tensions at the global level, the rapid adoption of e-commerce, the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have led all companies to have to review their supply strategies with a view to diversifying supply>.

India represents the 29th destination market for Made in Italy in 2022 and exports reached 4.8 billion euros, up 24.2 percent, while imports reached 10 billion euros, with growth of more than 50 percent particularly in the metallurgical, chemical, mining and textile sectors. The greatest demand for Italian goods is in the mechanical equipment sector, Sace points out. And analysis by the Mecs study center confirms: India, which is now the seventh largest market in the world in terms of demand for packaging machinery (1.5 billion euros in value, out of a total of about fifty billion) is destined to climb positions in the next four years and will become the fourth market of interest for manufacturers and exporters of packaging machinery, thanks to an average annual growth of 7.1 percent between now and 2026, a speed double that of the world average.

And it is in the awareness of the growing importance that India will have for Italian and European manufacturers in various sectors that the Mecs study center published in early 2023 the report "India, ceramic tile market," the first comprehensive study on the Indian ceramic industry, with detailed fact sheets of more than 800 tile companies, to help both ceramic technology manufacturers and Western ceramic tile companies navigate this gigantic and still little-known market. Two segments in which Made in Italy is a world leader and could leverage its competitive advantages to Indian counterparts as well.