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October/November 202 2 III MAGAZINE who deal in these product categories would therefore do well to evaluate this market, which promises to give a lot of satisfaction to our Made in Italy. Also, looking eastwards, satisfaction could also come from Hungary and the Czech Republic, countries that increase orders from Italy by +66.5% and +33% respectively. THE FLIP SIDE OF THE COIN On the opposite front, i.e. the markets suffering a setback, we must instead include China. In fact, Beijing is suffering a drop in exports of -22.8%, mainly due to the contraction in value and quantity of exports of bottled still wines and pasta. The country of the Dragon, in short, remains a second-rate player, which does not even come close to representing 1% of our total exports, an utterly derisory value for a giant with over 1.5 billion inhabitants. Also in difficulty is Japan, which leaves 10% of Italian exports untouched. In this case, however, the culprit for the slowdown is outside the food perimeter proper: in fact, the drop is mainly due to processed tobacco exports, which are down after several years of steady growth. ________________________________ BOX The fastest growing sectors The increase in exports rewards all production sectors substantially across the board, with the sole exception of the fresh and processed fruit sector, which lost 0.5% in the first half of 2022. On the other hand, scrolling through the list of the other product categories, one finds only positive signs. More specifically, cereals, rice and their derivatives grew decisively at a trend rate of +31.7% to a turnover of EUR 4.8 billion. Excellent results were also recorded by another Made in Italy flagship, the wine sector: wines and musts in fact touched the Euro 3.8 billion mark, thanks to a 13.5% increase. And again, the performance of milk and dairy products should be noted, which, with a growth rate of 21.9%, expressed an export turnover of Euro 2.4 billion. __________________________________ TABLE Main destination countries for Italian exports of agri-food products (in millions of euros) Country 1st semester 2022 % change 1st sem. 22/1st sem. 21 Germany 4,593 +10.9 (%) United States 3,285 +20.9 France 3,184 +17.7 United Kingdom 1,959 +18.8 Netherlands 1,274 +27.1 Spain 1,181 +29.9 Switzerland 1,058 +11.6 Japan 982 -10.0 Belgium 933 +18.9 Austria 870 +21.0 Poland 793 +39.2 Canada 610 +25.7 Sweden 471 +16.5 Greece 433 +31.0 Denmark 414 +24.8 Czech Republic 407 +33.0 Romania 374 +20.9 Australia 348 +17.9 Hungary 336 +66.5% China 261 -22.8 Other countries 5,681 +24.1 Source: Ismea elaborations on Istat data Sources: https://www.coldiretti.it/economia/commercio- estero-record-cibo-italiano-a-60-mldù