In the draft of the growth-bis decree law which was discussed last Wednesday in the Council of Ministers (See our article on the matter "Growth decree, here is the draft: digital agenda and start-up”) returns to a topic dear to the Minister of Economic Development, Corrado Passera, That of need for our country to attract productive foreign investment.
For this purpose, it is foreseen in the draft the establishment of an Italy Desk to "attract investments from abroad, as well as facilitate foreign investors who express interest in carrying out initiatives of significant economic and social impact for the country“. Desk Italia is established by decree of the President of the Council of Ministers, on the proposal of the Minister of Economic Development, and "carries out its activity according to the guidelines elaborated by the control room for internationalisation“. This Cabin is 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 (See the article “Control room for internationalization: yesterday the first meeting"). Precisely in its first meeting, on 18 July last, one of the targets set by the Cabin had been that of rstrengthen the attraction of foreign investment. In fact, the final document underlined: "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 the attraction, settlement and maintenance of Foreign Direct Investments on the national territory."
The function of Desk Italia is to "connection between the promotion activities abroad of Italy as a destination for foreign investments carried out by theInternationalization agency – Ice, and the activities of accompaniment and settlement of foreign investors carried out by the National Agency for the attraction of investments and business development - Invitalia“. In addition, Desk Italia will process “on an annual basis proposals for regulatory and administrative simplification on the issue of attracting foreign investments".
In the vision of the minister, it will not be a question of a new bureaucratic bandwagon, since Desk Italia will operate at the Ministry of Economic Development, making use of the staff of the Agency - Ice and the Agency - Invitalia, without further charges for the state. This heartens us a little, because after the (rather unsuccessful) experience of Invitalia, no one feels the need for a new bureaucratic body with offices, presidents and boards of directors: judging by what is written in the draft, we are talking about an operational, coordination desk, and not of a real company, and this could also be a positive experiment, and at least without additional costs.
Of course, the road from here to the conversion of the decree is long, and we will see what the final result will be. But in any case, the issue is important, and therefore we appreciate the government's attention to this issue.
