Production +2.8%, driven by food and pharmaceuticals
Year-on-year growth of 1.5 %. Textiles-clothing and transport equipment down
by Luca Orlando
Industry recovered from the August slump to grow 2.8% month-on-month in September. Progress was also visible on an annual basis, with a 1.5% increase.
Average pushed upwards in particular by food (+9.2%) and pharmaceuticals, confirming the positive trend in these sectors, which has been visible for some time.
In contrast to the recent past, however, growth also extends to other sectors. Such as electronics, machinery, metallurgy.At the bottom of the list, the negative momentum is confirmed for textiles-clothing, down 4.4%, just as negative (-2.1%) remains transport equipment.With September's growth, the balance for the first nine months of the year improves, which remains negative but only by seven decimals (in the first eight months the balance was -1%)
The underlying picture, net of the monthly ups and downs, is still not brilliant, as witnessed by the estimates for the whole of 2025 just released by Intesa Sanpaolo and Prometeia, with current revenues at the pole (an annual progress of 0.1%, with the total at 1120 billion) and a drop of one point at constant values, taking prices into account.Lombardy itself, Italy's leading manufacturing region, revealed more than one difficulty in the latest Bank of Italy survey: in fact, more companies reported a drop in turnover in the first nine months of the year than those that reported an increase.
With reference to expectations for the next six months, opinions of sales stability prevail, both on the domestic and foreign markets. This is to be expected at a time when even the incoming boost from exports is limited. The 2.6% growth in the first eight months of the year, with total sales at 423 billion lire, is in fact strongly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry's run (+35% to 46 billion lire), without which the balance sheet (pending September's European data, due on Friday 14) would be in the red. With widespread reductions in almost all sectors, including machinery and rubber-plastics, motor vehicles and electrical equipment, chemicals and textiles-clothing, wood-paper and furniture.
