Italy comes to Mystery Creek
Italian agricultural machinery offers increased Italian-NZ partnerships.
Italian innovation will be on show at Fieldays this year for the first time, with the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) exhibiting at Mystery Creek together with six key Italian agricultural machinery manufacturing companies.
The hope is this introduction will provide plenty of scope for increased Italian-New Zealand partnerships in the agricultural sector, with Fieldays the place where the next steps can be taken.
“It’s an amazing opportunity for us to organise Italy’s first official participation in Fieldays, together with the Embassy of Italy in Wellington and industry association FederUnacoma,” says Simona Bernardini, Italian Trade Commissioner for Australia and New Zealand.
“We’re certain there’s great potential to increase the cooperation between the Italian agricultural machinery industry and Australian and New Zealand companies.”
FederUnacoma represents
320 specialised manufacturers of machinery, equipment and components for agriculture, forestry, gardening and landscaping. Between them they cover around 90 per cent of national production, with an annual turnover of around
$25 billion.
Last November New Zealand and Australian machinery manufacturers and exporters took a successful trade mission to the International Exposition of Machinery for Agriculture and Gardening EIMA) in Bologna, Italy. Now the roles are being reversed and, while the European Union has exhibited at Fieldays previously, this year will be the first time Italy has its own stand.
Francesco Calogero, the Italian Ambassador to New Zealand, says agricultural machinery is a strategic industry for the two countries’ growing bilateral trade and economic relations, making him pleased to be involved at Fieldays: “The demand for Italian agricultural technology has grown steadily in the last few years and I expect it to grow even further once the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between NZ and the EU is fully in force.”
Italian-made agricultural machinery ranks among the top in the world, with strong export demand. FederUnacoma president, Alessandro Malavolti, says that in 2021 the value of exports grew by 20.5 per cent. That continued in 2022 when the sector’s exports grew to over $10.6bn, an increase of 14.6 per cent.
Exports of Italian agricultural machinery to NZ increased by 28.4 per cent last year, strongly contributing to the growth from $50m in 2020 to $88.7m in 2022. Tractor sales alone rose from $26.5m to $40.6m showing 53.7 per cent growth and agricultural equipment from $42.4m to $47.7m.
Last year Australian imports from Italy reached a record level of around $253m, an increase of 31.4 per cent over 2021. Malavolti says both New Zealand and Australia are already known worldwide for their agricultural excellence – but now they’re being called on to play an even more important role in global production systems due to geopolitical tensions in other parts of the world.
This opens up development prospects for Italian agricultural machinery which is already prized around the world because of its ability to design and implement technological solutions across all agricultural sectors.