Buenos Aires – Italy is Argentina’s third largest trading partner in Europe after Germany and Spain: in 2014, Italian exports to the Latin American country declined by 5%, amounting to around €1 billion, and while in the first 10 months of 2015, exports declined even further by 1.3%, SACE estimates that, by 2018, sales of Italian products in Argentina will reach €1.17 billion, with a cumulative increase of about 13% in four years. This was reported by an analysis of SACE’s Research Department on the occasion of the visit of President Matteo Renzi to Argentina. Among the major Italian export sectors, there is mechanical engineering (engines and turbines, materials handling equipment and lifting machinery for the food industry), metallurgy (iron and steel products, pipes, tubing, profiles), and chemical products (basic chemicals, fertilizers). The recent election of Mauricio Macri opens a new phase for Argentina, marked by the selective default of 2014 (linked to the insolvency of 2002), which precluded all possibility of access to funding on international markets and led to the reduction of foreign exchange reserves. (9Colonne)
