Footwear, exports and turnover continue to fall. Luxury retains, Italian purchases decrease

Outside the borders of the European Union, what stands out first of all is the further halving (-53.4%, with -36.7% in volume) of direct flows to Switzerland, which has always been the traditional logistics-distribution hub of the fashion multinationals, and which has fallen to fourth place in terms of value destinations: a large part of the transit in the Swiss hubs has been replaced by shipments to the end markets.

The growth in exports in value to the Far East (+4.3%) and the Middle East (+14.1%) - where the presence of designer labels is traditionally stronger, the only macro-areas to experience an increase compared to 2023 - should also be read in the light of these dynamics. In the Far East, in particular, China (+10.8% in value and +17.8% in quantity) and Hong Kong (+26% in value and +4.9% in volume, but still far from the pre-Covid 2019 pairs) performed well. Japan held up (-0.9%, +3.1% in quantity), while South Korea recorded sharp declines (in the region of -30%).

In the Middle East, the Arab Emirates grew by 34.4% in value, although it lost 4.5% in volume. On the American continent, similar reductions in value affected both the United States (-8.8%) and Canada (-7.2%). For the United Kingdom -6.1% in value. With regard to the countries of the former Soviet bloc, there was a drop in sales in Russia (-22.4% in value and -17.8% in pairs), while Ukraine recovered in value (+21%), but against a drop of 11% in volume.

When reading these figures, however, distortions related to the possible discrepancy between the province/region of production and that of dispatch must be taken into account. In the first quarter, only Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont showed a positive trend. In both cases, however, both the +0.3% of the former (due to the exploit of Piacenza, which doubled its flows compared to January-March 2023, +100.7%) and the more sustained +23.9% of the latter (obtained thanks to the +57.2% of Novara and the +23.7% of Vercelli) are linked to the presence in the territory, as anticipated, of significant logistics settlements that ship goods produced elsewhere abroad.

In line with the national average was the drop in exports from Lombardy (-10.8% over the first 3 months of 2023), which leads the ranking by region ahead of Veneto (-14.8%, which alone covers as much as 40% of flows to France, down by -6.9% but still the first regional destination) and Tuscany (-19.7%, which recorded a -82% drop in flows to Switzerland). In fourth place was Marche (-8.9% overall, with -7.7% in Fermo, -5% in Macerata and a much heavier setback for Ascoli Piceno, which lost -21.7%). Puglia (seventh) and Campania (eighth) also showed decreases, but these were quite small (-5.9% and -2.9% respectively).

Finally, as regards business demographics, at the end of March the number of active companies in Italy fell to 3,490 (with a negative balance of 74 units, between industry and handicrafts, in comparison with December 2023, i.e. -2.1%), accompanied by a drop in the number of employees of -0.8%.