Italian Leather Footwear Production Drops By 7.4%

In 2007, Italy's economy achieved 1.5% growth, slightly lower than the 1.9% plan submitted by the government to the EU at the beginning of the year, and also lagged behind other major western industrial countries. However, in general, it still maintained the slow growth trend in recent years, especially achieved good results in reducing the fiscal deficit and achieved the expected goal of the government. At present, Italy is in a period of economic weakness. The Prodi government should not only control the budget deficit, reduce public debt, but also promote market liberalization and other reforms. In the context of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, the U.S. economic growth slowed down, the exchange rate of the euro against the U.S. dollar continued to rise, and the oil price could not climb down, It is not easy and reasonable for Italy to achieve such a result in the domestic and foreign difficulties. ? ???? 1、 The overall economy is still showing a slow growth trend ???? In 2007, Italy's GDP reached 1284.919 billion euro (calculated by reference price in 2000), with the growth rate of 1.5% compared with 2006, slightly lower than the 1.9% growth rate of last year. Since the late 1990s, Italy's economic growth has slowed down and has been hovering in a sluggish state. In 2007, the GDP growth rate of other major Western and euro zone countries was as follows: Britain 2.9%, Germany 2.5%, the United States 2.2%, Japan 2.1%, France 1.9%. ????? ???? In 2007, Italy's imports and exports of goods and services showed a relatively high growth, reaching 4.4% and 5.0% respectively. The growth rate of domestic consumption of 1.4% mainly depends on the growth of household consumption (1.4%). In 2007, Italy's investment in fixed assets increased by 1.2%, mainly due to an increase of 2.2% in investment in construction industry, 0.8% and 2.6% in transportation and intangible assets, and a decrease of 0.3% in machinery and equipment. ???? As in previous years, Italy's economic growth in 2007 was mainly driven by domestic consumption, accounting for 1.1% of GDP growth, of which household consumption led to 0.8% of GDP growth, and the contribution rate of public administration and private sector expenditure was 0.3%. In addition, the contribution of fixed asset investment growth to GDP growth is 0.3%. Since the export of goods and services is higher than that of import, the contribution of foreign demand to GDP growth is also 0.1%. According to the industry, the driving rate of GDP growth in Italy is 0.8% in industry, 1.6% in construction industry and 1.8% in service industry. Agriculture, forestry and fishery are zero. ???? 2、 The fiscal deficit and public debt situation improved ???? In 2007, Italy's fiscal deficit was 29.179 billion euro, a decrease of 20.4 billion euro compared with the previous year, and the proportion of fiscal deficit in GDP also decreased from 3.4% of the previous year to 1.9%, reaching the upper limit of 3% stipulated by the EU, which is also the lowest point in recent six years. By the end of 2007, Italy's public debt was 1596.7 billion euro, 104% of GDP in that year, which was also 2.5% lower than 106.5% in 2006. The improvement of the financial situation is mainly due to the year-on-year increase in tax revenue of 6.6%, while various types of fiscal expenditure only increased by 4.5%. ???? 3、 Industrial production is stagnant ???? In 2007, Italy's industrial output value increased by 0.4% year-on-year, but if the annual actual working days were taken into account, the index was - 0.2%, which was mainly due to the decrease of 0.8% in the production of consumer goods and 0.7% in the production of semi-finished products; Production of means of production increased by 0.9% and energy production by 0.2%. From the perspective of industry, rubber and plastics (+ 3.4%), petroleum refining (+ 3.3%) and clothing and textiles (+ 3.2%) were the major producers of production growth in 2007. Leather and footwear (- 7.4%), precision electromechanical equipment (- 6.1%), wood and wood products (- 2.7%). Among them, the clothing and textile industry has maintained a good growth momentum for two consecutive years after a turnaround in 2006. ???? The industrial output value from the first quarter to the fourth quarter increased by + 1.0%, + 0.6%, + 1.0%, - 3.4% compared with the previous year. It is worth noting that the decline in industrial production in the fourth quarter was large, mainly due to the sharp rise in oil prices, which led to the rise of production costs and the decline of exports due to the strong euro. ???? 4、 Lower unemployment rate and more jobs ???? In 2007, the total number of jobs in Italy was 25.706 million, an increase of 244800 jobs over the previous year, with a year-on-year increase of 1.0%. Among them, the construction industry increased by 2.4%, the service industry increased by 1.1%, the industrial sector increased by 0.9%, only the employment in the agricultural sector decreased by 2.9%. Although the unemployment rate data for the whole year have not been released yet, the unemployment rate was 5.6% at the end of the third quarter, which is the lowest in recent years. ???? 5、 Inflation is steady and falling ???? Italy's inflation rate in 2007 was 1.8%, 0.3 percentage points lower than the 2.1% in 2006. The tail effect of inflation in 2004 on 2005 was 0.5%, while the inflation rate in 2005 was 1.3%. In 2007, the prices of alcoholic drinks and tobacco (+ 3.4%), food and non-alcoholic beverages (+ 2.9%), catering and reception services (+ 2.7%), housing, water, electricity and gas (+ 2.6%), etc., and the only ones whose prices dropped were communication (- 8.4%) and medical and health services (- 0.3%). ???? In terms of major categories, the inflation rate of service industry in 2007 was 2.1%, which was the same as that in 2006; The inflation rate of goods prices fell to 1.5% from 2.0% in the previous year. The inflation rates of the four categories of goods were food (+ 2.8%), energy products (+ 1.4%), tobacco (+ 4.2%) and other goods (+ 0.8%). ???? 6、 The export performance is good, and the trade deficit is reduced ???? In 2007, Italy's import and export trade of goods increased significantly, and the trade deficit also decreased significantly, which was a good year in recent years. In 2007, Italy's total export volume was 358.651 billion euro, up 9.7% year-on-year. Among them, the export volume to non EU countries was 143230 million euro, up 10.5%; Exports to EU countries increased by 9.1% to 215.422 billion euros. The annual total import volume was 368.181 billion euro, up 5.7% year on year. Among them, the import volume from non EU countries was 158.422 billion euro, up 5.5% year-on-year; Imports from EU countries amounted to 209.758 billion euro, up 5.9% year on year. ???? In 2007, the exports of consumer goods (+ 5.0%), means of production (+ 13.7%), semi-finished products (+ 8.9%) and energy products (+ 19.8%) increased to varying degrees in 2007. In addition to energy products, the import of all major categories of goods showed an increasing trend, including consumer goods (+ 3.8%), means of production (+ 8.6%), semi-finished products (+ 9.0%), and energy products decreased by 2.1%. By industry, exports showed an overall growth trend, with refined petroleum products (+ 19.4%), transportation (+ 16.2%), metals and products (+ 14.7%), mechanical equipment and machine tools (+ 12.6%), agricultural and fishery products (+ 12.4%), wood and wood products (+ 11.9%, excluding furniture). Imports of machine tools and mechanical equipment (+ 14.8%), metals and products (+ 14.6%), furniture (+ 12.1%), means of transport (+ 9.1%), rubber and plastic products (+ 8.6%); 4%), energy minerals (- 2.1%), refined petroleum products (- 1.2%), and precision electromechanical equipment (- 0.9%). ???? In 2007, Italy's foreign trade deficit was 9.53 billion euro, which was significantly lower than 21356 million euro in 2006. This is the first time that Italy's foreign trade deficit has been rising since 2004. Among them, the trade surplus with other EU Member States was 5.664 billion euro, and the deficit was 1.997 billion euro in 2006; The trade deficit with non EU countries also fell to 15.192 billion euro from 19.133 billion euro in 2006. ???? According to the industry, the industries with larger trade surplus include machinery equipment and machine tools (47.65 billion euro), clothing and textiles (10.224 billion euro), furniture (7.540 billion euro), leather and products (6.454 billion euro), metal mineral products (6.138 billion euro) and refined petroleum products (6.083 billion euro); The major deficits were energy minerals (- 50.7 billion euro), chemical and man-made fiber products (- 13.138 billion euro), precision mechanical and electrical equipment (- 8.516 billion euro), metals and products (- 6.495 billion euro) and transportation (- 6.256 billion euro). In terms of countries, the countries with large deficit are Germany (- 16.142 billion euro), China (- 15.452 billion euro), Netherlands (- 11.736 billion euro), Belgium (- 5.285 billion euro) and Russia (- 4.778 billion euro); The main surplus countries were the United States (13.306 billion), Spain (10.860 billion), Britain (8.633 billion), France (7.834 billion), Greece (5.449 billion), Poland (2.305 billion) and Turkey (1.863 billion). ???? Italy's major exporters were Germany (13.1%), France (11.7%), the United States (7.5%), Spain (7.2%), the United Kingdom (6.0%) and Belgium (2.9%). Germany (16.7%), France (9.2%), the Netherlands (5.5%), China (5.2%), Belgium (4.2%), Spain (4.1%), Russia (3.9%), the United Kingdom (3.5%), the United States (3.1%). ???? In 2007, the trade volume between Italy and China was 28.075 billion euro. Among them, 6.311 billion euro (FOB value statistics) was exported, with a year-on-year growth of 10.7%, accounting for 1.7% of its total exports; Imports from China amounted to 21.764 billion euro (CIF value statistics), a year-on-year increase of 21.2%, accounting for 5.2% of its total imports. The trade deficit increased from 12.259 billion euro in 2006 to 15.452 billion euro, ranking second only to Germany as in 2006. In terms of the absolute growth of bilateral trade volume and the relative proportion of Sino Italian Trade in Italy's total foreign trade, China has become an increasingly important trade partner of Italy. In 2007, its export volume to China increased from 1.5% in 2006 to 1.7%, and China's import increased from 4.6% to 5.2%, China is its fourth largest importer and the largest outside of its EU Member States.