NEWS
CONSTRUCTION MACHINES REACT AGAINST THE CRISIS
According to the data presented at the Construction equipment day during the Saie exhibition in Bologna, the Italian industry of the sector is still in recession, but the firms are reacting with innovative initiatives, particularly Formoter, on training and safety in building yards.
Cece: Italy bucks the European trend
In 2010 the Italian construction equipment industry lost another 5.3 percentage points of global proceeds compared to 2009. This is what emerges from a study by Cribis D&B, a business information society, carried out for Unacea and presented the last 5th of October in Bologna during the Costruction equipment day at Saie. By adding the financial reports of the Italian manufacturers of construction equipment, which have just been submitted, we obtain a sum of 2,291 million euros, i.e. - 47% compared to the peak year 2008. As regards the different sub-sectors, earthmoving machines had a total revenue of 609 million euros
(-4.9% compared to 2009); 586 million euros (-12.1%) went to drilling machines; 506 million euros (-8.5%) to concrete equipment; 353 million euros (-7.8%) to road machines; 113 million euros (+5.6%) to tower cranes; 60 million euros (- 14.3%) to crushing and screening equipment. The survey also highlights that since 2008 the risk of delay of payment on the part of buyers of construction equipment has increased by 45%.
“The Italian firms of our sector – declared Enrico Santini, Unacea president – have an extraordinary technological and entrepreneurial know-how, and are reacting by focussing on foreign markets and product specialisation. However, as far as the public decision makers are concerned, we find a total lack of industrial policy and no attention is being paid to internationalisation. We expect to be consulted immediately about the support to foreign trade and we ask of the Table on construction equipment, in which we participate at the ministry of economic development, a more proactive and swift approach, open to an exchange of ideas adequate to the current situation of emergency. Too many firms and too many jobs are at risk.”
Last April Unacea presented a series of proposals such as: the creation of a registry of construction equipment in order to map the market, to introduce focused incentives, to verify the conformity of vehicles to the regulations on safety and environment; extra points in competitions to the building firms that invest in innovation and carry out works employing last generation equipment; a limit to the use of obsolete machines in public works and in urban centres; the training of customs officers and sanitary staff to identify non-compliant machines.
“By incorporating the new IIIb stage, - maintains Giampiero Biglia (Cnh – Fiat Industrial) Unacea vicepresident – we are currently producing machines that decrease by 90% the emissions of particulate and by 50% the emissions of nitrogen oxide compared to the machines of stage I (come into force in 1996). To build machines of this type, it was necessary to spend enormous sums of money in research and development, which are not compensated for by cyclical policies of fleet renewal. Meanwhile, the Italian market in the first six months of the year has lost about 33% compared to the same period in 2010. Thus we run the risk of arriving at the end of the year with a total amount of -60% sold units compared to the pre-crisis levels of 2007. An unbearable situation.”
On the European market Valentina Mauri, EU affairs adviser of Cece (the Committee for European Construction Equipment), pointing out that, according to the Business Barometer drawn up by the Brussels body, “the situation of the sector in Europe is rather different from the Italian one. The morale of the firms remains positive, although they are less optimistic than some months ago. In September 2011 the orders decreased by 3-10 percentage points in 19% of the cases and by more than 10 in 40% of the cases compared to September 2010, while the other 41% of interviewed firms had an unchanged or negative trend. Things are going even better in extra-European markets. As regards sales, Italy is the only market in which 75% of the interviewed firms expect stagnation or a negative trend, compared to 30% in Scandinavian countries, 31% in Germany, 37% in France, 47% in Benelux and 59% in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Understandably, the interviewed firms indicate the economic crisis as the main factor that hampers the expansion of their business.”
Confronted with an increasingly difficult business environment, construction equipment firms are demonstrating, with Formoter, that they want to react against this situation by working hard on the training to safety and innovation in building yards. The training courses for machine operators organised by Saie and Unacea together with the manufacturers Ihimer, Komatsu and Manitou gathered around 350 people for all the days of the fair. After the first edition in 2010, this year the focus was on attachments such as buckets, pulverizers, demolition hammers, sweepers, augers, planers, compactors, wheel excavators, carriages and pallet forks, automatic digging systems. These technologies supplied by Canginibenne, Geotop, Indeco, Simex and U.Emme.
Presentation studio Cribis-Unacea
Presentation CECE
Presentation Ihimer
Presentation Komatsu
Presentation Eco Certificazioni
Presentation Manitou