Export Italy: increases sector food industry sales during the first-half year 2020

Ismea, Institute of Services for the Agricultural Food Market, recently stated that Italian exports of agro-food products increased during the first six months of 2020, reaching 22.1 billion euros, which corresponds to an increase of 3.5% on an annual basis, and 11% of total exports of goods and services.

The result was determined by a strong growth in exports in the first two months of the year and a strong decline in April (-14% on March) and May (-4.5% on April).

On the other hand, imports were down. Therefore, Italy achieved a clear improvement in the trade balance, which reached 710 million euros in earnings, compared to a deficit of almost 1.2 billion in the first six months of 2019.

The main destination market for exports is the EU, with purchases in the first half of 2020 equal to approximately 14.3 billion euros (+3.1% on an annual basis). Shipments from outside the EU generated revenues of 7.9 billion euros (+4.6% on an annual basis).

The countries that during the first six months of the year have increased more the imports of Italian food products include Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Canada and China.

The production sectors with the greatest increases were “cereals and derivatives”, “fresh and processed vegetables”, “fresh and processed fruit”, and “milk and derivatives”. On the contrary, wine; while remaining the second production sector in terms of export value, underwent an annual drop in exports of 4.1% in the first six months of the year.