Editor’s Note
**Editor’s Note:** While Arezzo’s strong performance offers a bright spot, the broader business network faces persistent headwinds from geopolitical shocks and declining exports, signaling a year of consolidation ahead.
The strong performance does not dispel the heavy dark clouds hanging over the declining exports of the business network. Forecasts indicate a year of consolidation. Arezzo remains the locomotive behind Florence.
Experts call them geopolitical shocks, referring to conflicts on the Middle Eastern chessboard, but in Europe’s largest jewelry district, they are the nightmare of every entrepreneur who starts the factory each morning, producing jewelry and jobs. The provincial picture is outlined by analyses from Francesco Butali, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce, and Mario Del Secco, Acting Secretary General. At the center is the report presented at the Commodity Exchange on the occasion of the Economy Day. The data defines the district’s performance.
2025 was an absolute record year for exports, for better and for “worse.” On one hand, a surge in purchases of precious metals; on the other, a decline in goldsmithing: two sides of the same coin. What will happen this year? Prometeia estimates indicate a phase of transition and consolidation, where the slowdown in industry and construction is counterbalanced by the strong performance of services.
In more detail, in 2025, exports exceeded the historic threshold of 18.5 billion euros, with a growth of 19.3% compared to the previous year. The engine was propelled at full speed by the boom in precious metals and gold bullion, at the center of the hunt for safe-haven assets when strong international geopolitical tensions foreshadow crisis scenarios. The leap was enormous: +127.6%, equivalent to approximately 6 billion euros more. Arezzo’s export in this specific segment now represents three-quarters of the entire Italian total. The shadow falls on goldsmithing and jewelry, with a significant contraction of 40.9%, leaving 3.1 billion euros behind.
This trend was further accentuated in the first quarter of 2026: Arezzo’s exports recorded an overall growth of 92.2%, driven almost exclusively by the precious metals sector (+237.7%), while goldsmithing halved its value with a decline of 49.4%. The reasons: the frenzied rise in the price of gold, the halt of the Turkish market after the introduction of VAT on imports, and the slowdown of the United Arab Emirates hub.
Arezzo’s weight is also reflected in broader balances. In 2025, the province accounted for over 24% of Tuscany’s exports and nearly 3% of the national total, ranking as the second province in the region right after Florence, then rising to over 34% of the regional total in the first three months of 2026.
In this “liquid” phase, a gap remains between the performance of the precious metals refining and recovery of raw materials from technological waste sector—cutting-edge and ecologically strategic but limited to a few companies with about six hundred employees—and the jewelry sector, which includes over a thousand companies and more than eight thousand employees. This situation worries entrepreneurs and Chamber of Commerce analysts due to the potential effect on employment levels and the social stability of the territory. This will be the most challenging task in the coming months.