In the latest three years, the ranking of the destination countries for the main world manufacturers of injection moulding machines saw important changes.
For example, in 2007 the first market for Italy was China, with a value of over 28 million euro that reduced to less than 3 in 2008 and 840.000 euro in 2009. At the same time, Germany recorded a smaller shrink of its sales to Chinese moulders: respectively, 46, 40 and 31 million euro. A similar trend for Japan: 42, 20 and 22 billion yen. For the Italian manufacturers, the destinations somehow more stable, in the three-year period, were United Kingdom (about 12, few less than 6 and almost 8 million euro), Germany (9-11,5-4,6 million), Brasil (8-7-5 million), Spain (7-6-3 million), Poland (5-5-4). On the contrary, there was a fall towards United States: in 2007 sales amounted to 11,5 million euro, reduced to 3,5 in 2008 and to 380.000 euro in 2009. Also the German export towards United States recorded a drop, even maintaining a certain importance: as a matter of fact, in 2007 it was 77 million euro (first destination country), in 2008 reduced to 61 million and in 2009 to 27. The trend of the Japanese export towards the US is similar: 19 billion yen in 2007, 17 in 2008 and 6,6 in 2009. An average growing trend in the three-year period can be seen for the Chinese export of injection moulding machines to US moulders: just below 32 million RMB in 2007, 53 in 2008 and some 41 in 2009.
A similar slackening affected the Japanese export - which main destinations are represented by the Asian countries - with exceptions just for South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, India. This is not surprising, also according to the statistics recently released by Japan Plastics Machinery Association: less than 5.000 presses sold in 2009 in comparison with over 12.600 in 2008 (the record was reached in 2004, with 18.100 units). Some uncertain recovery signals have been recorded in the first months of the current year, in light of an improvement of sales to China. At the top of the Chinese ranking there is Brasil - that recorded a slump of 40 percentage point is 2009 over 2008 - Iran, that keeps a certain importance, even with a 15% shrink, and Turkey, with a strong decrease. Several Asian countries are becoming more and more interesting for the Chinese manufacturers of injection moulding machines, collecting two-digit growth, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh. In this area, India represents an exception, as the Chinese export passed from 273 million RMB in 2007 to 294 in 2008 to 113 in 2009.