Amid tariffs and international tensions, Italian agri-food is way ahead of its competitors

In the first five months of 2018 the Italian-made agri-food exports have generated 16.8 billion euros. This is an impressive figure, but even more importantly, growth is up +3.5% compared to the same period in 2017, which is much better than almost all of its world competitors, with the exception, of course, of France, which grew +4%, while Germany was not able of exceeding 1%, Spain lost -1%, and the United States collapsed -8%. Merit for these growth dynamics is to be found not only on the traditional markets (EU and North America, where Italian products “outperform” the average import variations) but also on the “emerging” Eastern Europe markets. A point in case is Poland, whose food & beverage imports from Italy have increased over 46% in the last five years, according to the CRIF and NOMISMA Agrifood Monitor report. These are important results, especially when taken in the framework of an international context of crack down on tariffs, returning to protectionism, unrestricted free trade agreements, and so on. Another quite interesting aspect that emerged from the report is that Italy is growing on all the major markets, which, however, are generally importing less and less. In the US, total imports of agri-food products have recorded a decrease in value of 4% in the period examined, while those from Italy have instead increased 4.5%. There is a similar trend in Canada and compared to an overall drop in agri-food imports of -6.8%, Italian products increased 4%. Looking at Europe, there was a 2.6% increase in agri-food imports from Italy in the United Kingdom (compared to -2.4% total), and instead in Germany imports from Italy grew +5.8%, in contrast to an overall growth of +1.9%. Finally, in Japan, where the Economic Partnership Agreement (Jefta) has just ended and here, too, Italian agri-food imports have grown +1.6% in contrast to a general decrease of 5.3%. As mentioned above, this trend is also thanks to the excellent results recorded outside the traditional Western European or North American markets, such as Mexico (where Italian agri-food exports grew 23%), South Korea (+20%), Romania (+13%) and Poland (+8%).