World production of pasta today is close to 17 million tons, and Italy is still first in the world in the ranking of producing countries, with 3.6 million tons (ahead of Turkey and the USA) and a turnover that is close to 7 billion euros. Italians are the biggest consumers of it, with about 23 kilograms per capita per year and a total of 1.3 million tons consumed, but they are also the ones who most make it known to the rest of the world: well over half of domestic pasta production goes abroad (about 61 percent). The good export performance is confirmed by an elaboration of Unione Italiana Food on Istat data (January-December 2023): more than 2.2 million tons exported, with a slight contraction in terms of volume (-3.7 percent compared to 2022), which affected most of the agri-food sector, against a value of 3.8 billion euros (+3 percent compared to 2022). Of the exported pasta, about 1.5 million tons is destined for EU countries while nearly 780,000 tons end up in third countries.
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