Ceramics ready for battle on unfair competition and energy

Don the one hand the concern about unfair competition generated by out-of-control energy and CO2 costs, on the other hand the serenity generated by the strength of an entrepreneurial system that despite all adversity resists at the top of the market. Oscillating between these two poles are the reflections of Augusto Ciarrocchi, elected last June to the leadership of Confindustria Ceramica, the first president in the history of the association to be an expression of the Lazio ceramic sanitaryware cluster and not the Emilia-Romagna tile cluster. "If competing companies from other countries were put on the same starting line as us, i.e. with the same rules and contextual conditions, I am sure we would be unbeatable, but working like this is really a struggle," admits the newly appointed president.

In fact, the strength of 'Made in Italy' has so far had no other prop than the tenacity of ceramic entrepreneurs, who are still leaders in global trade, with over 5 billion euro worth of tile exports in 2023, 82% of production: the battle begun ten years ago on the consumption front to spur Italians and Europeans to make conscious purchases capable of safeguarding the excellence produced in their country has come to an end, while the policies of Rome and Brussels seem to be working against the competitiveness of a sector that in Italy is worth 7.6 billion euro in turnover and over 26 thousand direct jobs between tiles, sanitaryware, tableware, refractory and bricks.

The numbers for the first half of 2024 are not a bracing viaticum for the inauguration of the 41st edition of Cersaie, the International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings that opens tomorrow, Monday 23 September, and that until Friday will host at BolognaFiere, with 145 thousand square metres of pavilions at full capacity, 560 ceramic tile brands (216 foreign) and hopes to exceed 100 thousand visitors to approach the pre-Covid record. "The climate is not one of the best, just look at Germany, which is one of the main outlet markets for our products, but if we turn towards the Atlantic, American demand continues to run," notes Ciarrocchi. "We must not forget that we are coming from the rebound of 2022, an exceptional year between the lockdown effect and superbonus, it was natural for the trend to weaken and the figures for the first six months of 2024 tell of a Made in Italy ceramic tile industry that maintains its positions in terms of volumes but loses 4% in turnover. Cersaie has always been the most important moment of confrontation with international markets to plan orders and get indications on the future".

It is not the ups and downs of the economic situation that make ceramic entrepreneurs gloomy, but rather European regulations and national decrees that put their energy-hungry and hard-to-abate factories on the sidelines, between Ets quotas and the Transition 5.0 plan, with the real risk of ending up overwhelmed by the invasion of Indian tiles in the face of the ridiculous duties decided by Brussels. "The battle fronts on which to focus my presidency are already written in the facts," underlines Ciarrocchi, who will lead Confindustria Ceramica for the two-year period 2024-2026, "and they are the energy issue (we need a revision of the Ets mechanism on CO2 emissions) and fair competition on the market to stem imports from India and other countries. Two issues vital for the survival of our industry'. The 7% tariffs imposed by Brussels on Made in India are a warm nappy, the United States is thinking of 400% rates, and the announcement alone was enough to block tile sales from India, which, however, have spilled over into Europe, the hoax as well as the damage. "We risk an encore of what happened 20 years ago, when Chinese tiles, with their entry into the WTO, wiped out the producers of Civita Castellana, who then produced 60% of Italian tableware," the president recalls. Italian tile manufacturers, on the other hand, have limited the effects thanks to 30-70% duties imposed since 2010 by the EU against China, an experience that should be replicated now to face the other Asian giant.

EU policy also struggles to understand that 'you cannot ask a sector like ours, which has already reached the highest standards in energy, material and emission recovery and which already pays more for energy than all other foreign competitors, to further reduce CO2 in a short time, because there are no technologies available. The Ets quotas on CO2 have become just another tax that makes us even less competitive, not a transition tool,' Ciarrocchi points out. Will it help to have brought the centre of gravity of Confindustria Ceramica closer to the government palaces to make itself heard more by Rome? "The real advantage is having turned the spotlight on lesser-attended sectors of the great ceramic family, I am experiencing the disadvantage of my constant travelling from Lazio to Emilia with disastrous infrastructures: whether it is the A1 or the E45, queues on the motorway are the norm and when I arrive in the Sassuolo district it is no better. It is not possible that for decades on strategic works for logistics, such as the Campogalliano-Sassuolo link road and the Cispadana, only promises have been piled up without ever starting a building site. And I fear that I will not be able to convince Minister Salvini that the 14 billion for the bridge over the Strait of Messina would be better spent on improving the road and rail network along the boot'.