(Finance) – They amount to 8.8 billion95 million per day, the damages for the Italian foreign trade accumulated between November 2023 and January 2024 due to the crisis in the Red Sea. He notices it Confartigianato which calculated the impact of the decline in merchant ship traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea on Italy’s trade flows with Asia, Oceania, the countries of the Persian Gulf and South-East Africa. In particular, in the last 3 months, Italy has lost 3.3 billion, equal to 35 million per day, due to failed or delayed exports and 5.5 billion (60 million per day) due to the lack of supply of manufacturing products.
Confartigianato also measured the consequences of the crisis on Italian micro and small businesses which, in Europe, are those at greatest risk. Their share of direct manufacturing exports to non-EU countries is in fact equal to 32.7% of the European total, with a value even double that of their German counterparts. In 2023 it amounts to 30.8 billion euros (equal to 1.5 points of GDP) the import-export flow of goods from the Made in Italy sectors with a greater presence of MPIs transiting through the Red Sea.
In particular, the exports of products with the greatest contribution from our small businesses stand at 10.8 billion, with the highest value, equal to 4.2 billion, concerning food products, followed by metal products (1.8 billion), other products , including jewelery and eyewear, again with 1.8 billion, fashion with 1.5 billion and wood and furniture with 1 billion. Added to these sectors is a key sector of Made in Italy exports to the markets of emerging Asian countries, that of machinery And installationsalso with a strong presence of micro and small businesses: in 2023 the value of these products of ours transited by sea through the Suez Canal was 11.6 billion.
According to Confartigianato, the crisis also affects small businesses in the sector transport. In the 14 provinces in which the 15 largest ports with at least one million tonnes of goods moved through the Red Sea are located, 2.5 billion euros of turnover of the transport and logistics system, which has a total of 13,000 companies, of including 7,979 companies in the road transport of goods, 1,136 companies in the maritime transport of goods and 5,683 companies in logistics services.
The effects of the crisis are manifested by the lengthening of delivery time of the goods, due to the use of broken that circumnavigate Africa, and to the increase in the cost of maritime transport. Suffice it to say that the cost index of shipping from China in the week ending January 12, 2024 increased by 120.6% compared to the week before the attacks on Western ships began.
“The escalation of the crisis in the Middle East – underlines the President of Confartigianato Marco Granules – penalizes the Made in Italy system and the supply of essential products for the transformation of Italian manufacturing, worsening the slowdown in international trade. The effects of the Red Sea crisis, added to the ongoing monetary tightening and the reactivation of European budget rules, could have serious consequences on Italian economic growth. It is essential to implement all measures, starting with the implementation of the Pnrr, to fuel business confidence and propensity to invest and avoid the risk of a slowdown in the expansionary employment cycle”.
Confartigianato also calculated the impact of the crisis Suez on exports from Italian regions. The highest value of products transported by sea through the Red Sea is that of Lombardyequal to 12.9 billion, followed by Emilia Romagna with 9.4 billion, Veneto with 5.7 billion, Tuscany with 4.7 billion, Piedmont with 4.2 billion e Friuli Venezia Giulia with 2 billion.
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