Construction Machinery: articulated plan needed
A crisis forum set up by the Ministry for Economic Development has begun examining market conditions and structural constraints limiting the development of construction. In preparation, the ministry drafted a document on the interests of the industries in the sector which might lead to the recovery of the market
Construction machinery and equipment is in crisis and there are demands for articulated steps to be taken. These would include not only incentives for the purchase of new machinery but also a package of measures designed to overcome the structural limitations of the building sector and lessen the use of obsolete machinery on worksites and machinery imported from non-European countries. These details emerged during the Crisis Table organized by the Ministry for Economic Development which met yesterday afternoon in the ministry. Taking part were representatives of the construction machinery sector, including Unacoma/Comamoter, the association in the National Manufacturers Federation (Confindustria) which represents the manufacturers of earthmoving machinery.
A state of crisis is continuing in Italy where sales declined by close to 10% in the first quarter of the year in the wake of the collapse in years past due to the international economic crisis but, unlike this trend, the construction machinery markets in the other leading European countries displayed robust growth in the first quarter of 2011. Sales climbed 10% in France and The United Kingdom and soared by more than 60% in Germany. Conditions in Italy, it was said during the meeting in the ministry, can be assigned to a complicated set of factors involving the stall in public works, a blocked Housing Plan and excessive fragmentation of the system for offering tenders and associated legislation, all of which weigh heavily on the construction sector and discourage investments in machinery and equipment.
Moreover, there is little awareness of the issues pertaining to safety and innovation which means the use of technologically outdated machinery on many worksites and raises the problem of competition from newly industrialized nations which export to Italy machinery and equipment which fail to comply with European Union norms and thus nullify the heavy investments made by Italian manufacturers for compliance with these high EU standards.
Among the recommendations advanced by Unacoma/Comamoter, represented by Secretary General Marco Pezzini, were the introduction of a system of awards for businesses tendering offers based on the renewal of their machinery inventories and laying down precise limitations on noise levels and exhaust emissions on urban worksites plus initiatives for the promotion of the Italian industry abroad which might offset losses on the domestic market. Other proposals launched by those who took part in the meeting, all of whom were in solid agreement, were for the creation of a construction machinery registry making it possible to monitor the market and the obsolescence rate of machinery now in use and for the promotion of specific training of customs officers and public health office staff members for applying more severe controls of machinery coming into the country for compliance with European regulations.
The ministry, responsible for the coordination the table, has already identified three areas for pursuing recovery strategy – work on regulating the market, spurring domestic demand and strengthening the system for marketing Italian machinery – and intends to move ahead quickly with studies of the various issues involved for drafting a wide-ranging planning document.
Rome, April 15, 2011
Agricultural Machinery: growth in first quarter
Unacoma registration data disclosed a 22% gain for tractors against the backdrop of increasing sales in all the major countries. The figure is conditioned, however, by the concentration of registration procedures linked to subsidies for scrapping old machinery and Rural Development Plan (RDP) financing, said Massimo Goldoni, the president of the manufacturers association who spoke of a scaling back of growth percentages over the year. Combine harvesters are still on the decline, by 20%, and behind in tying in to economic recovery.
The first part of the year was positive for agricultural machinery sales. In the first quarter, January-March 2011, tractor registrations in Italy climbed 22% over the figure for the same period last year and gains were also reported for transporters, up 8%, and trailers, ahead 18%. Compared to the national average figure reported, growth was even more substantial for tractor registrations in the regions of Lombardy, 79%, Piedmont, 36%, Veneto, 32%, Emilia Romagna, 34%, Lazio, 29%, and Puglia, 83%. The trend of combine harvesters was, on the other hand, still negative with a 20% plunge in the first quarter.
Witnessed in the new year were positive trends in all the leading foreign markets, with France reporting tractor registrations ahead 13%, Germany surging by 45%, the United States up 6% and Russia showing a steep gain of 71%. Thus, investments in mechanization are being resumed in the wake of the international economic crisis, according to data developed by Unacoma on the basis of the figures provided by the Ministry of Transport, and made public this morning in Bologna, at the extraordinary assembly of the association. Conditions in Italy, however, must be evaluated with caution, it was said.
The steep rise in registrations in the first quarter, in fact, depended largely on the completion of documentation of sales made at the end of 2010, when machinery scrapping incentives were still applied, and the deadline for the first tranche of regional RDPs funding which stepped up the purchase of new machinery and equipment. The president of the manufacturers association, Massimo Goldoni, said, “We’ll have the real scale of the recovery over the course of the year when sales and registration procedures have stabilized.”
He added, “Though the percentages may be scaled back, it will be important for the market to maintain an index in the black to confirm the reversal of the trend of last year which, we remember, closed with a drop in tractor sales of 14%.” He went on to say, “We will be analyzing the trend of the combine harvester market very carefully in these months, a market which closed 2010 13% in the red and worsened further in percentages of sales in the first quarter in spite of the positive trend of cereal prices which, in theory, should have encourages acquisitions.”
General economic recovery and the good rate of growth in foreign markets will stimulate recovery on the export front which, according to National Statistics Institute data on December 2010, rose 3% for tractors and 14% and 22% respectively for agricultural machinery and earthmoving machinery and can be expected to show further gains over the year. For the Italian mechanization industry which ships 70% of production to foreign markets, exports play a role of fundamental importance.
Bologna, April 27, 2011
New in Confindustria: FederUnacoma is formed
The assembly of Unacoma, the National Union of Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers, has approved a new statute for transforming the association into a federation. The seven merchandise categories already inside are now under a new name, FederUnacoma, with prospects for bringing together many others representing allied and complementary sectors.
Unacoma, the National Union of Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers, has reached a positive conclusion of procedures for institutional reorganization with the transformation of the association into a federation. The base of the industry members, gathered in Bologna for an extraordinary assembly, approved the new statutes by a strong majority to mark an historic turning point in the representation of the sector. The various categories now in Unacoma will no longer be configured simply as “merchandise groups” but become fully-fledged associates grouped in a federation capable of also bringing together companies operating in allied industries for representing the interests of mechanization with greater strength. The original members of the federation are represented under the categories Tractors, Engines, Agricultural Machinery, Self-Propelled Agricultural Machinery, Garden, Earthmoving Machinery and Components and can now be joined by others in the world of industry, brought in on the basis of their characteristics as ordinary, affiliated, aggregate members or other associations.
Approval of the new statute has already been endorsed for conformity by Confindustria, the National Manufacturers Federation, and will be ratified by the board by the end of June to complete work opened in March 2010 in keeping with Confindustria guidelines aimed at uniting single associations within multi-sector federated groupings.
“The FederUnacoma arrangement meets two precise requirements,” said President Massimo Goldoni. “On the one hand, this is the growth of autonomy and improving the operations of the individual production sectors with characteristics, needs and various reference markets which are evident; on the other this allows stronger and more authoritative unity for representing common interests in institutional and political quarters at the national, European Union and international levels. The process will be completed with the election of new FederUnacoma leadership, the board and steering committee, in June 2012 and with the election of the president in June 2013,” he reported.
Thus the transformation of Unacoma is coming at a sensitive time for the nation’s entire industrial system now called on to come to terms with the challenges of the global market and all the economic and political variables which have directly influenced sectors of operations and require an increasingly more efficient system of services for enterprise and representation mechanisms. This point was confirmed at the assembly by Confindustria Vice President Aldo Bonomi who also unveiled the contents of the Enterprise Network project drafted by the federation for heightening the awareness of synergies among production sectors.
In his statement to the assembly, Goldoni recalled the stages of Unacoma’s growth since the founding of the association in 1945 to represent one of the most important industrial sectors in the Confindustria framework. From the time of organization’s contributions to the definition of the agrarian reform of 1950, the 1960 Green Plan and national mechanization research projects up to trade fair events and the promotions and wide range of services provided by the Unacoma Service company, Goldoni explained, Unacoma has always played an active role in representation to help confirm the standing of this mechanics sector as one of the Made in Italy strong points. “So the best way to pay tribute to our history was to field a great new project for creating a federation capable of adding new drive and being a leading player in the economic and political dynamics of the new century,” he concluded.
Bologna, April 27, 2011
