Results of the Quarterly Business Sentiment Survey of CICC Members

Dear Members and Friends,

From July 2020, the China-Italy Chamber of Commerce (CICC) started a quarterly survey to gather information on the business sentiment of all our Members in China.

The goal is the direct and up-to-date knowledge of how business is doing in our industries every quarter.

At the beginning of each quarter we will learn how the previous one performed and what’s the forecast for the following one.

The CICC is glad to inform you that the results of the quarterly business sentiment survey (second quarter) are available online!

Scan the QR-code to download the executive summary.

The survey was conducted from the 10th to the 15th of July, 2020 and the sample is composed by 171 replies out of 450 representatives of the business community.

Companies who replied to the survey are well distributed nationwide (with a significant 72,51% of respondents located in East China, followed by 14,62% located in South China and by 8,76% in the North). The respondents reflect a proportionate sample of CICC Members with a significant number of Service Providers (legal services, strategic and tax consultancy, logistic, banking, etc.) and an equal number of companies from Manufacturing, followed by Machinery, Automotive and Food & Beverage.

Data show that:

- 41% of CICC Members had low orders intake during the second quarter (Q2), sign of a severe reduction caused by Covid-19 that will inevitably keep on affecting businesses for the following quarters.

- Despite a context of unprecedented momentum, 40% had a stable order intake in Q2 and this can be considered a positive note given the peak of the epidemic.

- A remarkable 20% saw their orders increased.

Exporters had a much worse situation compared to domestic sales.

Compared to Q2, order forecast for Q3 show signs of slight improvement with:

- 34% forecasting lower orders

- 48% predicting stable intake

- 18% forecasting increased orders

Exports will face a severe worsening.

Business trend forecast in 6-12 months shows an optimist outlook boosting both stable and improving expectations to a total of 82%.

Three main trends are building up:

     - recovery is slow but steady

     - domestic market dominates the positive trend

     - exports will still be severely hit.

The CICC thanks all the 171 participants for investing 60 seconds in the Survey, helping to create added value and providing a new tool to improve support for the Italian business community in China. The next quarterly business sentiment survey will be held in October 2020.

Kind regards,

CICC Team