Agri-food exports, improve (but remains negative) the Italian trade balance

With the record Italian exports of agri-food products reaching 44.6 billion euros in 2019 (+5.3% on 2018), equal to 9.4% of total exports of goods and services, against a more limited increase in imports (+1.4%, for 45.4 billion euros), the Italian agri-food balance remains negative, but only 800 million euros, with a net improvement of 1.6 billion euros.
In detail, while the agricultural sector’s trade deficit worsened by 700 million euros, the food industry surplus increased by almost 2.3 billion euros compared to 2018.
These numbers come from the latest report signed by Ismea, which shows that the main destination market remains the European Union, with purchases during the past year equal to 28.4 billion Euros (+2.6%), but the most consistent increase in the demand for Italian food products comes from third countries (+12.7% for just under 16.2 billion Euros). The most performing destination markets in 2019 were France, the Netherlands, the USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In terms of individual sectors, the most positive was once again that of wine, with assets of 1.6 billion euros, ahead of cereals, rice and derivatives with 1.6 billion euros, and beverages with 1.4 billion euros. The worst debit balance, on the other hand, is that of the fish sector with -5.1 billion euros, followed by animals and meat (-3.4 billion euros) and industrial crops (-2 billion).