Just on the rebound, and the next lull is already looming in Italy. Last year, the Italian market for plastics processing machinery grew strongly, with production volume up 14% to EUR 4.45 bn versus 2020, according to the Italian industry association, Amaplast (Milan; www.amaplast.org), but war in Eastern Europe is darkening the outlook.

The association said machinery imports increased 36% to EUR 1.05 bn, and exports rose 9% to EUR 2.98 bn. Domestic demand thus jumped 30% to EUR 2.52 bn.

With the growth, the Italian market has outpaced the pre-pandemic mark set in 2019, but not the previous highs from 2018, with only imports reaching a new record. The start of 2022 has been promising, with Amaplast association members noting that demand for plastics processing machinery, tools, and other equipment continued to increase in the first quarter, and the outlook for the second quarter was also positive.

Despite rosy expectations, the impact of hostilities in Ukraine is worrying business leaders: on one hand, exports to Ukraine and the more important Russian market are collapsing. On the other, delivery bottlenecks are getting worse, so potential machine buyers – plastics processors – are experiencing production downtimes. The tense situation for supply chains has been exacerbated by the Chinese government’s zero-Covid strategy and the associated shipping traffic jams outside the leading port of Shanghai.

For exports of Italian plastics machines, Germany remained the top destination last year, with growth of 9% to EUR 376 mn. It was followed by the US (up 33% to EUR 359 mn), China (up 11% to EUR 161 mn), and France (up 4% to EUR 157 mn). Exports to Russia fell 16% to EUR 80 mn in 2021, and shipments to Ukraine, already at a low level, plummeted 39% to EUR 7.5 mn.