According to data processed by FederlegnoArredo's Study Centre based on ISTAT sources, the wood-furniture supply chain exported a total of EUR 4.98 billion in the first three months of 2023, showing substantial stability compared to the first three months of 2022 with -0.3%. Furniture exports also showed an almost stable trend with around EUR 3 billion and +0.3% compared to the first quarter of 2022.

Lombardy confirms its supremacy

Lombardy is confirmed as the leading region in terms of exported value with 1.2 billion euros (29% of the total), an increase of 3.9% over the first quarter of 2022. It is followed by Veneto (+1.3%) with an exported value of 991 million euro, while Friuli Venezia-Giulia with 581 million euro shows a decrease (-3.8%). Marche, in fifth place, with 242 million Euros exported, recorded the most consistent growth (+11.1%) while Puglia, in eighth place with 105 million Euros exported, marks the most marked drop (-20.8%).

Treviso (-0.6%) and Pordenone (-2.8%), despite the negative sign, are confirmed as the first two provinces in terms of exports of the wood-furniture chain; followed by Monza and Brianza and Milan, growing by +2.3% and +9.6% respectively.

Furniture exports: two alarm bells

In the top ten of furniture exports, France takes first place with +5.4%, third place for Germany with +4.6% and fourth place for the United Kingdom at +3.1%. Two alarm bells that should not be underestimated are the United States, which, despite being in second place, registers a sharp setback with -9.5% and China, still in seventh place, with -17.6%. Russia drops to eleventh place with -24.2%, while Saudi Arabia climbs the ranking to sixteenth place with +27.2% and in thirty-second place we find Kuwait with +28.2%.

Diversifying and opening new routes

As Claudio Feltrin, President of FederlegnoArredo, well explains, "if the data for the supply chain can be moderately reassuring thanks to a stable quarter in which Lombardy and Veneto led the results, it is furniture exports that are giving some less than comforting signals, and this is also reflected in the industrial production figures for May 2023 compared to May 2022, with -17.4% for wood and -8.5% for furniture. A drop that we can say is physiological after two years that to call exceptional is an understatement. But we cannot pretend not to see how the leading markets of our Made in Italy are repositioning themselves".

"Alarm bells? Perhaps not yet so obvious,' Feltrin concludes, 'but indicative of a direction of travel that companies must become aware of as soon as possible. In this sense, we welcome the imminent presentation of the new Simest calls for tenders under the 394 Fund, in which the Federation has collaborated with concrete proposals. Indeed, efficient measures are needed to promote the internationalisation of companies and the opening up of hitherto little-explored markets. I am thinking of the Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Diversifying and opening up new routes are the watchwords for tackling a market that is now far from the certainties of the past'.