Author: a.manzo

The Covid-19 pandemic is still spreading across Europe and the whole world, putting significant pressure on national budgets and all the manufacture sector. It is useless, but we must take note  that industry is in deep suffering and not all companies will come out from the crisis, not all will be still standing when everything will come to the end. Orders are falling, in second quarter industrial production index in Europe decreased by almost -20% in Q2 2020 against the same period of the previous year. In April alone, industrial output fell by -27% on a yearly basis. The second wave of pandemic will finish the job, giving the coupe de grace to many companies which were already not so solid before: the positive aspect is the third quarter, with a resumption of industrial production that, even if the data are still not completely available, might give a pulse to the sector with positive trend. In the fourth quarter, which was aimed to see a general growth of orders and activity, the spread of pandemic upset all the forecast, now substituted by a giant question mark: what will be in the future?

The only solution is holding on, trying not to fall and saving employees, waiting for better days, in which planning will be easier and uncertainty will not be the leading feeling for everyone.

It is difficult for managers and industrial to face a time when they can not control their own destiny, when the future is in someone else’s hands: in industry, with numbers and accurate esteems you can usually foresee everything, in every condition you can always try to do something to reverse the worst situation. Now is not possible: we can only wait and see what happens. It’s not easy to accept for women and men of action.

Another topic in which we can only wait and see what happens is Tube Dusseldorf. After the spring postponement, the exhibition is scheduled from December 7th su 11th: while other exhibition, EuroBlech first, chose to go virtual, Tube is still to be held in presence. Many companies, as you can read in our special pages inside this issue of the magazine, decided to cancel their participation, but many are still ready to take part to an event that is hoped to be the first step to restart of the sector. We will be there, with daily reports on our website and many photographies directly from Messe Dusseldorf, if nothing comes to change the plans. Effectively, if the exhibition will be really held, it would be a great injection of positivity and hope for the whole sector, as well as an impulse for business.

Inside our magazine, you will find many pages dedicated to Tube2020, as much as to other exhibition that have taken place in these months: Bi.Mu in Milan, EuroBlech Digital and Tube&Wire China.

Enjoy your reading.

The uncertainty of political stability derives from a mechanism for economic stability: what an irony

There is a Europe that tests its political stability with a discussion on the Recovery Fund and European Stability Mechanism, intended to protect economic stability,. Destiny puts a great dose of irony, as always, and politics, also in this case as always, a good dose of myopia. The future of Europe is played by Conte and Rutte: the first, holding a pair of eight, the second with a color, specifically money, those who absolutely do not want to hear about sharing with the Mediterranean countries, France included, on her knees for a health emergency faced from the chest and not with her hand over her eyes.

In the end, Conte’s victory with a pair of eight only accentuates the image of a Europe hopelessly divided into three large groups, the North, the South and the East, with Germany’s Merkel pensioner engaged in the vain, but admirable, attempt to keep up a shack that makes water from all sides: sooner or later, even the Teutonic boy will finish his fingers to insert into the holes that open in the blue-starry dam right from Holland. At that point then the flood will drown the dreams and hopes of three true statesmen, De Gasperi, Schumann, Adenauer, left in the hands of personalities of quite another caliber and thickness, not adequate to overcome partisan interests to achieve a higher purpose and wider.

Pessimistic outlook? Maybe. But a Europe incapable of jointly managing political, military and social crises, now finds itself having to admit that it is unable to jointly manage a health emergency, even failing miserably in finding a purely economic agreement to support not only the member states in difficulty, but also that glimmer of unity that has remained.

It is not a question of populism: it is a question of appearing not up to par with the Europeans. Faced with an economy based on the ability to work together, in part, and to share markets and that needs, in almost every country of the Union, the same attention: defense of production, high guard on the costs of materials first, and many other actions excellently summarized by Cecimo in its decalogue for the post Covid-19.

It is difficult, in such a context, to be able to think of optimism and a positive future, also due to the objective difficulty that the health emergency has caused to many companies in many European countries.

Among the main novelties of this issue, the postponement of Euroblech until next March. Euroblech was the fair that had most resisted the postponement, but faced with the changing scenarios of the epidemic in countries traditionally very important for the world of sheet metal and machinery, from South America to the Far East, the organizers preferred to give the appointment to 2021.

Resite instead BIMU which is betting strongly on the possibility of a return to normal in the autumn, as well as Tube, also scheduled for December.

As for our magazine, we continue our commitment to give our readers information on news from the world of machine tools, steel and pipe and pipeline applications, more significant than ever at this time when contacts are limited. Don’t stop following us.