In order to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to remark that, in the first semester of 2009, the export decreased by 32% in value with respect to the same period of last year. However, the German manufacturers, the main competitors of the sectoral made in Italy, recorded an even worse drop (-37%).

On the other hand, the "stability" of some of the main destination countries of our export has to be underlined: comparing the first six months of 2009 to the same ones of 2008, a 28% increase was recorded towards Benelux (the 9th market in the ranking), a limited -6.1% of sales to Turkey (the 7th country), -9.3% towards Mexico (tenth) and, finally, a below-the-average decrease to the first destination market - Germany - that showed -25%.

An encouraging data - according to the Italian manufacturers Association - is the growing export reported in the April/June 2009 period with respect to the previous quarter (+4%) and the positive trend of the monthly export in June with respect to January: +6%. Of course it does not allow to talk about absolute recovery but it confirms a turnabout that seems to be consolidated.

10 main destination markets of Italian export of plastics and rubber machinery
	January-June 2009 (million euro)	share on total (%)
Germany	109.78	12.5
France	55.93	6.4
Spain	47.53	5.4
Russia	46.67	5.3
China	43.48	4.9
United States	41.14	4.7
Turkey	36.47	4.1
Poland	35.66	4.1
Benelux	29.89	3.4
Mexico	27.75	3.2
total top 10	474.29	53.9
other countries	405.36	46.1
world	879.65	100.0