The pandemic that broke out almost one year ago strongly affected the results of the Italian industry of the sector, which registered double-digit decreases for all main economic indicators in 2020. However, the trend of the year 2021 should be completely different and, even if the ground lost over the last twelve months cannot be fully recovered, the forecasts are really positive. This is in brief what was reported by Barbara Colombo , president of UCIMU-SISTEMI PER PRODURRE, the Italian machine tools, robots and automation systems manufacturers' association, during the usual end-of-year

Sesto San Giovanni, 1st October 2020. In 2019, the Italian machine tool manufacturing industry ranked fourth among manufacturing countries and fourth also among exporting countries, overtaken by China that stole its historical third place. On the contrary, its fifth position in the ranking of consumer countries remained unchanged, as a confirmation of the importance of the Italian market in the international scenario. After a 2019 that was certainly not positive, the year 2020 marked a collapse of investments in machine tools, in Italy and abroad, but a consumption recovery is expected already