The recession also hits Emilia-Romagna for the second consecutive year, but it doesn't weaken the will of those who have ideas and want to put them into practice. GDP fell by 1,4% in 2013, after the marked decline (-2,5%) in 2012, but the desire to do business is growing. Indeed, innovative start-ups are on the rise, reaching 162, as are business networks which in July involved 714 companies. The economic climate is cold, but not pessimistic. Recovery should arrive in 2014, +1,1%, while employment should stabilize. These are the estimates of the regional Unioncamere, which draws up the traditional year-end balance sheet.
Morale is wary, says the association, but not pessimistic. In fact, the region's economic engine is fueled by exports, which also grew by 2% this year, supported above all by packaging and food.
In these two areas, the plus sign remains imperative: +7,5% for the agri-food sector; +1,5 the metalworker. “The most important sector from an economic and technological point of view – writes Unioncamere – ie machines and mechanical appliances, including packaging, grew by 3,4%. The best performance comes from metal products, excluding machinery and equipment, whose exports rise by 11,5%”.
In short, not everyone is crying, indeed there are those who continue to expand and conquer markets in this phase. It is someone who has known how to internationalize in time and innovate processes and products. “Those who have their main reference market outside the national borders resist and often consolidate. And some timid winds of recovery should arrive from abroad”. Unfortunately, internal demand is still very weak and the recovery will not take place until the Italians have resources to spend.
In fact, outside the perimeter of excellence, the year-end balance sheet is a war bulletin: "The manufacturing sector is not emerging from a recessionary spiral: for industry in the strict sense, in the first nine months of 2013, production fell (-3,1 %), turnover (-3,2%) and orders (-3,8%). The construction sector, which has been struggling for over five years, is still far from a way out.
The downsizing does not spare any size class: the volume of business suffers a decrease of 5,7%, more marked for small businesses with 1 to 9 employees (-6,4%). The retail trade recorded decreases in sales of around 6,2% compared to the same period of 2012 (-7,9% in Italy), in correlation with a very depressed trend in consumption and income. The most critical situations are in small and medium distribution (respectively – 8,7% and – 6,7%).
Large-scale distribution shows a relative greater stability (-2,0%). Agriculture struggles to maintain satisfactory levels of profitability: the value of agricultural and zootechnical production shows a decrease of about 3% compared to the previous agricultural year. However, the value of production at the origin seems to settle at 4,4 billion euros, a figure higher than the average of the last three years, which confirms the anti-crisis role of a sector which between 2008 and 2012 increased the value by 12% of its production". In this context, employment also suffers (-1,5%), but the employment rate in Emilia-Romagna remains high, the second in the country, behind Trentino Alto Adige.
Lastly, the credit market is suffering "according to statistics disclosed by the Bank of Italy, at the end of September 2013 performing bank loans, i.e. net of bad loans, granted to ordinary resident customers, excluding financial and monetary institutions, decreased by 5,0, 6,3%". The situation worsens if the analysis is restricted to manufacturing companies and households (-XNUMX%).
