It met yesterday for the first time there Control room for internationalization, the body jointly directed by the ministers of economic development and foreign affairs and set up for better coordinate the internationalization policies and strategies of our country, organizing initiatives for promotion, analysis tools and market penetration and concentrating the use of financial resources towards specific and shared objectives.
The meeting was attended by, in addition to the two main ministers It will pass e Terzi, also the main national and regional governmental and economic actors who play a role on this front, such as the Minister for Regional Affairs, Tourism and Sport Piero Gnudi, the Minister for Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies Mario Catania, the president of the Marche Region Mario Spacca representing the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, the president of Confindustria George Squinzi, the president of Unioncamere Ferruccio Dardanello, the member of the Executive Committee of the ABI Guido Rosa, the president of RETE Imprese Italia George Guerrini, the president of the Alliance of Italian Cooperatives Louis Marino.
The Cabin has resolved on the subject of:
1) Common strategy for promotional activities abroad
The Ice Agency, in collaboration with the competent offices of the Ministry of Economic Development and Foreign Affairs, is completing a specific mapping of international markets, identifying the areas and methods of intervention and developing commercial priorities on the basis of various indicators that determine the attractiveness for the Italian system.
Promotional activity will be based on stronger coordination between the central government and local institutions; on the focus of funding on multi-year and highly significant initiatives, so as to create a critical mass of the resources available to the various national, territorial, public and private subjects; on the diffusion of e-commerce and on the search for new penetration strategies both through ad hoc distribution models and through connections with distribution systems and platforms of the various markets; on the development of new forms of "export finance" with the involvement of Sace, Simest, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and the banking system, also with particular attention to SMEs.
2) Rationalization of the foreign network and coordination of the activities of Ministries, Regions, Chambers of Commerce
The foreign network available to Italy is being reorganised, around the coordination role of the embassies, on the basis of some main criteria: the size of the markets and the growth potential of the countries; the composition of exports by product sector; the Italian historical presence.
Another fundamental point of the rationalization will be the need to use common and shared spaces for all the Italian structures in the sphere of support to internationalization which, in a given country, have export responsibilities. This will strongly favor the integration of the various functions – such as, for example, the integration of the network of Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad with that of ICE – allowing for significant savings also from an economic point of view.
3) Strengthening of the attraction of foreign investments
The stock of foreign direct investments towards Italy is stably lower than that towards other European countries. It is therefore necessary to implement as soon as possible a strategic project for attracting, establishing and maintaining Direct Foreign Investments on the national territory. For this reason, a special working group has been set up between Mae, Mise, Mef, the Department of Regional Affairs, Tourism and Sport and Ice which, also involving the other players in the Control Room, will have the task of quickly defining an organizational proposal for the strengthening of the structures and initiatives used for the attraction.
The final communiqué of the joint presidency is published on the Farnesina website.
