A historic decline in production and exports
The decline in Italian goldsmithing production continues, with a 27.5% drop in the first two months of 2026, following the 13.6% decline recorded in 2025. As Luca Parrini, president of Confartigianato Orafi, noted when presenting the data at a summit meeting with the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (Mimit), last year, the sector’s exports contracted by 18.1%, or €2.9 billion less, bringing the sector back to the critical levels seen during the pandemic and the 2009 financial crisis.
The factors behind the crisis: soaring gold prices and market paralysis
“The sector,” Luca Parrini emphasized, “is caught in a vise between soaring gold prices, U.S. tariffs that have caused our gold jewelry exports to the United States to drop by 5% in 2025, and the paralysis of the Middle Eastern markets.” These three factors are weighing particularly heavily on the “gold quadrilateral” of the districts of Arezzo, Vicenza, Alessandria, and Milan, where 82.6% of Italian gold jewelry exports are concentrated. The situation is particularly critical in Arezzo, which recorded a 40.9% drop in exports in 2025, followed by Milan with a 36% decline. Conversely, Alessandria (+27.3%) and Vicenza (+6.4%) are bucking the trend.
An urgent appeal to the government and banking institutions
Faced with this production crisis, which is leading to massive reliance on social safety nets, Parrini outlined to Minister Urso’s office the need for immediate action to safeguard the sector’s 8,000 artisanal businesses and their 14,000 employees. In addition to the need to protect jobs, the president of Confartigianato Orafi also emphasized the unsustainable burden of financial costs associated with loans for the use of precious metals. For this reason, Parrini called for the opening of urgent talks with the ABI (Italian Banking Association) and the Bank of Italy to identify corrective measures capable of containing the costs of raw material procurement, which are now spiraling out of control.
A positive response from the ministry to support the sector
The Ministry of Economic Development (MIMIT) responded positively to the request to continue discussions, accepting the proposal to establish an expanded roundtable at the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. This roundtable will involve all employer and union representatives to define extraordinary support measures to prevent the loss of expertise and economic value represented by Italian goldsmithing excellence worldwide.