The UK's exit from the single market represents a step backwards from the objective of integration and, in the immediate term, an additional cost for businesses. Also, but not above all, Italian. To say it is a report published by Promethea to evaluate the impact of Brexit on our economy.
For the first time in 40 years, Italian companies will find themselves facing tariffs on the British market. Even assuming contained tariffs, according to current EU profiles towards third countries, the average duty applied to Italian companies after Brexit could be higher than 5% of the exported value, in line with the German and French losses (and lower than countries whose supply is more skewed towards traditional sectors, generally exposed to higher duties).
Assuming that Italian companies keep their prices in euro unchanged and bear the duty, Brexit could cost overall more than a 1 billion euro (in any case only 0.25% of Italian exports in the world).
The strong specialization of the Italian offer in the United Kingdom in the sectors of mechanics, pharmaceuticals and other means of transport (a quarter of Italian manufacturing exports to the country) should make Brexit less stringent for some medium-high technology sectors.
On the other hand, various sectors of the sector could be severely penalised Made in Italy traditional. By applying the sector's average tariffs to the actual flows in 2015, food companies would in fact arrive at lose 450 million euros (14% of its sales on the market), fashion over 200 million euros (9% of what is exported).
The devaluation of the pound could represent a significant, albeit temporary, competitive disadvantage for the Italian offer, acting on Italian competitiveness both on the British market (compared to domestic producers) and in third countries where Italian and British companies compete more intensely.
From this point of view, in reality, Italy and the United Kingdom do not have high points of "friction": in the beyond 120 micro-sectors analyzed by Prometeia, in less than 30 Italy and the United Kingdom are simultaneously among the top 10 world exporters. Of these, one third belongs to mechanics, while the others are equally distributed between the production of consumer goods (food, clothing, cosmetics, jewelery and sporting goods), intermediate goods (chemicals and construction) and capital goods (office furniture , aerospace).
However, there is no shortage of major cases direct competition, such as bakery products, medical and dental supplies, office furniture, medicinal specialties and, above all, gold and jewelery (for which over 70% of extra-EU sales are directed to the same markets). In addition to China/Hong Kong and the United States, the geographical area that shows the greatest overlaps is that made up of the Arab countries, in particular Saudi Arabia (for mechanics, furniture, chemical intermediates and bakery products) and the United Arab Emirates (jewellery, sporting goods, paper products, cosmetics, taps and industrial fittings, steel pipes, furniture, aerospace and equipment for the generation, transformation and distribution of energy).
