Italian equipment still in ‘crisis’
07 November 2011
Italian construction equipment association Unacea has reiterated its call for government intervention, claiming declining sales figures for January to September demonstrated continuing "crisis" conditions in the machinery market.
The trade body said 7,173 earthmoving machines were sold in the nine months to the end of September, down 26.2% year-on-year. The road building sector also slumped, with 186 machines sold in the period, down 47.2% compared to 2010.
Unacea vice president Enrico Prandini repeated the Association's call for the Italian government to intervene and introduce measures that would drive up new equipment sales, including the creation of a registry of all construction equipment to help reduce the number of illegal machines that are not compliant to the country's regulations.
"We cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel of this crisis," he warned. "The government should insert in the drecree on development for some of the proposals we put forward to the ministry of economic development on construction machines - particularly those concerning the creation of a registry of construction equipment and the awarding of extra points in competitions to firms investing in efficiency in the building yard, safety and environmental conservation."
Giampiero Biglia, another vice president at Unacea, said the situation in Italy was "dramatic" and affected all product lines.
Mr Biglia said Italy's concrete equipment industry was also being hit by the slump in sales. Although comparison data for 2010 was not available, he said sales of concrete equipment - including truck mixers, concrete pumps and plants - had decreased by around a third in the three months to 30 September, compared to the preceding quarter.
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