Export increases by 6.6% and the complex international panorama is showing signs of improveme Spanish machine-tool keeps its production gure stable The de nite gures corresponding to the end of the 2016 nancial year of the Machine-tool and advan- ced manufacturing technologies sector indicate that the turnover in 2016 nearly reached 1.50 billion Euros, representing a 1.5% increase respect to 2015 gure. The different subsectors (metal cutting, metal forming, components, tools, accessories and machining) experience small changes but the pano- rama has not changed very much. The stability of the gures is the persistent trend for the rst Spanish industrial association that celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. In the words of its President, Antxon Lopez Usoz: “following the trends of the last few years, our extensive international experience and our capacity to supply solutions that adapt to increasingly demanding mar- kets, is allowing us to navigate through troubled waters. The year has been very complicated with enormous uncertainties in very important markets for us, such as the USA, Russia, Brazil or India. However, other markets have been operating slightly better, noteworthy among which are Germany that took back its position as European leader, or Mexico, Portugal and Italy, with good results, and China that has recovered part of the territory lost in 2015, and is showing certain signs of improvement in demand.” Antxon López Usoz, President of AFM. Exports Exports grew by 6.6% in 2016, reaching 1.18 billion Euros. If we analyse the machine subsector destination countries, at the end of 2016 we see that Germany remains at the top of the table followed by China, Mexico, Portugal and Italy. The next ve most important destinations are: USA, France, Poland, United Kingdom and Sweden. Germany has pushed the USA off the top of the table, with a con- siderable increase - 35% - with respect to nancial year 2015, representing 12.9% of the Spanish export. The growth of China has been even more outstanding, but still some way from the gures reached in 2012 or 2014. Its market share was 11.6%. In third place, Mexico also experienced a highly considerable growth of 67%, representing 9.3% of our sales abroad. Portugal and Italy complete the list of the top ve countries, in both cases representing 8%, and also with a growth increase of more than 30% with respect to 2015 gures. Exports to these ve countries exceed 50% of the total exports. However, there are other markets that have deteriorated in 2016, such as the USA that went from representing 12.6% of the exports in 2015 to 8% in 2016; the United Kingdom whose share dropped from 6.3% to 2.9%, or Russia and Brazil that have also experienced reductions. Domestic market After three years of clear recovery and very high relative growths, the domestic consumption came to a standstill in 2016, nally remaining at 584 million Euros, a gure that is clearly insuf cient for a country that strives to be industrial. These gures, despite doubling the amounts that were registered in the worst time of the recession, are still much lower (around 40%) than the consump- tion gures that Spain registered prior to the recession. 4<< SECTOR DATA n