Reading concurrently Intesa Sanpaolo’s study «Economy and Finance of industrial districts» (December 2016) on employment and Istat data released in recent days would be enough to understand where the path to emerge from this endless economic crisis, in the medium term, starts.
In summary: Istat confirmed that the number of employed increased by 14,000 units, or 0.1%, over the last quarter. At this rate, it will take 18 years to achieve the so-called «full employment»; it will take 12 to return to pre-crisis levels. In conclusion: the economic policy measures (enacted by governments of experts, right and left wing) unequivocally failed; actually, as it has been cleverly noticed, our country has been lacking any economic policy vision (only fixed-term measures and nothing structural) for decades.
The study on Industrial Districts confirms, instead, that Italy has plenty of areas of excellence and identifies 15 particularly performing ones as to growth and profitability. In these areas (even in these years of crisis and in spite of everything), the presence of positive externalities has helped large companies to emerge, has favoured the birth of a new class of medium-sized companies and a growing spread of innovative start-ups. The interest in multinational corporations is growing in districts; large foreign groups have acquired many famous district brands and the companies taken over have invested in technology and increased employment.
Local distinctive skills also push companies to bring production back to Italy (reshoring) in the fashion, furniture and mechanical engineering industries, with a focus on high-end products and increased employment in the area. Finally, we can add that in fashion and food districts, we can sense the overriding need to introduce strict traceability systems to combat counterfeiting and protect the Made in Italy brand.
There are more economic policy ideas in this study than in the last decades of legislative measures; the study has been online for a few weeks with places, names and figures: will someone read the MEF?
Traduzione di Silvia De Prisco
