Italian Industry, Export of machinery with high intensity of Automation, Creativity and Technology (ACT)
Capital goods
Italian exports of high-intensity Automation, Creativity and Technology (ACT) machinery are worth 32.1 billion euros, with a growth potential estimated at 8 billion.
This is highlighted by the second edition of INGENIUM, the report by the Confindustria Study Center created with the support of Federmacchine.
Advanced markets absorb 21.6 billion euros, while emerging ones 10.5 billion.
The Americas are recording the greatest growth, with Mexico being the main outlet market. The additional potential is distributed rather evenly between advanced (4.6 billion) and emerging (3.3 billion) countries, suggesting companies to increase their market shares in both. In the advanced, the United States leads (+760 million), followed by Germany and France (+470 million each). Among the emerging ones, China (+760 million), India (+472 million) and Türkiye (+364 million) stand out.
Realizing export potential is not automatic, but requires an increase in production, driven by investment.
A coordinated effort by companies and institutions is therefore necessary to encourage a general strengthening of the production system and its competitiveness: if on the one hand companies should commit to allocating resources to productive investments, on the other the institutions should encourage this process by mitigating the elements of uncertainty and providing incentives for all companies that decide to reinvest their profits for the purchase of capital goods.
Digitalisation, then, plays a crucial role: strengthening it is also essential to integrate AI into existing industries.
However, in 2023, the Italian artificial intelligence market only grew by 52%, reaching 760 million euros, in fact the gap compared to the USA and China remains significant. With only 5% of investments compared to those in the United States, Europe is lagging behind and Italy is struggling especially among SMEs: only 18% have started AI projects compared to 61% of large companies.
In an increasingly uncertain context, it is finally essential to make the best use of the free trade agreements already concluded by the EU and finalize others, such as the one with Mercosur, to obtain further preferential access to strategic markets. It is also necessary to strengthen trade ties with European countries and identify areas of advanced collaboration with the United States, also to face competition from integrated trading blocs such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in Asia.
“The INGENIUM Report highlights the decisive impact of geopolitical factors on trade and investment flows. Tensions, conflicts and global challenges, such as energy and technological supply, influence the choices of governments and businesses. With the inauguration of the new American administration, we expect an acceleration of global dynamics, while we hope that Europe will regain the courage to make epochal choices. The time to act is now: companies and institutions must work together to translate the identified potential into actual exports and consolidate Italy’s role as a global leader. This is why we hope that a mission will be organized as soon as possible in Mexico, which according to the CSC’s analyzes is among the top five emerging countries for export potential of ACT goods, with a margin for improvement of 281 million euros.
Any delay could translate into lost opportunities for our industrial system”, said the Vice President for Export and Attraction of Investments of Confindustria.
“The Italian capital goods industry has always ensured a decisive contribution to the balance of the country’s trade balance, operating on very varied markets in terms of geography, culture and type of demand. The increasingly strong need to operate in the international arena and the growing complexity that this activity brings with it, partly determined by the general conditions of uncertainty, require a careful study of the context. The results emerging from this second edition of INGENIUM are a useful tool for understanding which areas have the greatest potential and which business development guidelines to follow to ensure the improvement of the competitiveness of the sector’s Made in Italy offer”, added the president of FEDERMACCHINE.
January 2025
Source Confindustria
Study Center
