World-leading quality Italian ceramics under siege
Record exports for this high added-value industrial segment, but dumping by competitors and EU policies on ecological transition are a concern
by Marco Fortis
3' min read
3' min read
Italy is a major player in the field of ceramic tiles. In particular, it is the world leader in the export of quality ceramic tiles, those with a water absorption coefficient of less than 0.5% (HS6 code 690721). In 2023, which was also a difficult year for the sector, our country exported $4.4 billion worth of quality ceramic tiles, holding a 32.1% share of the world market, ahead of Spain (19.1%), China (17.2%) and India (14.3%), which are our biggest competitors.
Quality ceramic tiles are the jewel in the crown of a strategic made-in-Italy sector such as ceramics, which includes, in addition to other types of tiles, bricks, refractories, sanitary ware, tableware and technical ceramics and which, in addition to the Sassuolo and Imola tile districts, is characterised by another district of lesser economic importance but with a long and important history such as the Civita Castellana ceramic sanitary ware district.
It is not easy to find other weighty sectors of our economy in which Italy is as strong in exports as that of tiles and which present a similar high degree of international specialisation, demonstrated by a foreign trade surplus that, in the case of quality tiles, last year was as much as USD 4.2 billion. We can mention, among the products in which Italy is export leader with absolute values and equally significant market shares, cruise ships (with a world market share of 34.3% in 2023), motor yachts (with 33.8%), sunglasses (with 40.1%) and packaging machines (with 29.5%).
Among manufacturing and non-energy products, quality tiles are the seventh most important item in the 6-digit HS classification for our trade balance, ranking behind packaged pharmaceuticals (excluding antibiotics, hormones and steroids), gold and jewellery, sports cars over 3,000 cc, wines (excluding sparkling wines), leather handbags and cruise ships, preceding taps and fittings, packaged medicines (containing hormones or steroids but not antibiotics) and vaccines for human medicine. So, quality ceramic tiles are one of the magnificent top ten successful commodities of our diverse international specialisation. Ten products that alone secured Italy a foreign trade balance surplus of over 55 billion dollars last year.
The Italian tile sector, although extremely competitive in terms of innovation, technology, product quality and social and environmental responsibility, is today threatened by two main 'enemies', one external and one internal. The first, the external one, is represented by the aggressive dumping competition from Asian producers such as China and India, against which the United States and the European Union have applied anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties, which, however, are not always adequate as, for example, in the case of European duties against India.
