Made in Italy at a standstill (-0.2%), boom in car imports from China

After January's drop, Made in Italy did not rebound in February, closing in substantial break-even with an average drop of 0.2%. Determined in particular by the drop of almost three points in Europe, while non-EU markets recorded a growth of 2.8%.

Almost all sectors were in the red in February with a few exceptions, including wood, pharmaceuticals and metals. Sales dynamics, explains ISTAT, which on both a monthly and annual export basis is partly influenced by high-impact shipbuilding sales: net of these, a smaller cyclical increase (+1.8%, from +2.6%) and a trend growth of +0.9% are estimated.

The trend growth in exports to the United States (+8%) remains high but is concentrated in pharmaceuticals (+32%) and other transport equipment, which grew by a wide double-digit margin; the stronger growth in exports to Switzerland is mainly due to higher metal exports; while the sharp decline in exports to Germany (-15.4%) is influenced by the sales of seagoing craft recorded in February 2025 (net of these, the decline in our sales to Berlin is reduced to 0.7%).

In the balance of the first two months, Italia's exports still yielded 2.2 per cent, in absolute value this is EUR 2.2 billion.

Imports also fell in general in February, but particularly as a result of energy. which on an annual basis dropped almost 30 points. Excluding this, the advance in purchases was 2.7%, with progress spread across all categories of goods.