Italy experiences the paradox of having an infrastructural endowment that is not adequate to the standards of the main European countries (Bank of Italy estimates the gap at around 15% compared to Germany and the United Kingdom), despite having dedicated a share of GDP to infrastructure investments substantially in line with the rest of Europe.
The need to bridge this gap poses a question not only of selecting the interventions and how to finance them, but, further upstream, requires the definition of the development model to be adopted.
The topic was the subject of discussion last March at the conference “Infrastructures of the future. Reflections for the Governments to come”, held at the Bocconi University, whose contributions were reported by the magazine “Management delle Infrastrutture e delle Utilities” in the April-June 2013 issue.
The participants, the Lombardy Region together with leading operators in the economic-financial world, agree on the need to adopt an integrated approach, which considers infrastructures as "service channels" capable of exploiting, thanks to modern technologies, the synergies and complementarities between different services (telecommunications, transport, energy, etc.). This makes it possible to mitigate land consumption and to distribute the costs and benefits of the works over different broader categories of users.
Therefore, the planning of infrastructures in the coming decades requires the development of an integrated logic, which goes beyond sectoral perspectives and which is based on strong attention to the overall needs of the territory.
In a context of scarce resources it is also necessary to focus on the available infrastructures, modernizing and enhancing their profiles, possibly also rationalizing their offer.
Particularly important is the technological upgrade of existing infrastructures, increasing the "incorporated intelligence" in them and in their management. Concrete examples are Smart Grids projects, i.e. tools that make it possible to computerize the electricity system, or ITS (Intelligent Transport System), systems that apply information and communication technologies to the management of traffic and the mobility of people and goods .
This would make it possible to get closer to the concept of "Smart City", a city where the installation of intelligent networks makes it possible to combine environmental protection, energy efficiency and economic sustainability.
In order to optimize the use of resources and improve the bankability of projects, it seems inevitable to reduce construction and management costs (we are referring to the concept of Total Cost of Ownership, which adds up the burden of designing/construction of the including environmental compensations for affected populations, with all annual running costs considered over the full expected useful life). Under penalty of failure to start the works.
The containment of infrastructural expenditure imposes mechanisms and rules that push for "frugal" design solutions, first of all not oversized compared to objective needs, but also with construction standards consistent with safety and quality levels in line with European ones (avoiding overdesign) .
Finally, on the issue of raising financial resources, the European Commission has put in place two initiatives. First: the 50 billion euro "Connecting Europe Facility" plan, intended to improve the European transport (31,7 billion euro), energy (9,1 billion euro) and digital (9,2 billion euro) networks ).
Second: in the framework of Europe 2020, the Project Bond initiative with the aim of facilitating the private financing of projects.
In order for the plan to be successful, however, it has emerged that it is necessary to expand the range of potential subscribers to these instruments, also spreading them on international markets. For example, ISVAP's recent amendment to regulation 36/2011 which allows insurance companies to use Project Bonds to cover up to 3% of technical provisions is positive. It is equally important to provide forms of allocation of certain types of risk (so-called "wrapping"), in particular construction risk, in order to increase the rating of those otherwise unattractive projects. In this regard, the Interministerial Decree of 8 August 2012 provides for the possible intervention of SACE (insurance-financial group), Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and EIB (already envisaged at EU level).
However, according to CDP's vision, in a context in which the banking system struggles to support initiatives beyond the medium term, the realization of infrastructure investments cannot do without the involvement of long-term investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign funds and the large development banks (the European Investment Bank, the German KFW, the French CDC, the Dutch APG, the Polish PKO, the Spanish ICO and the CDP itself).
To date, however, only 2% of these institutional investors' loans are used to finance infrastructure projects.
As far as investment incentives are concerned, the tax exemption of investments makes it possible to reduce the charges for the concessionaire especially in the initial stage of construction of the work, in which it is not possible to produce income. In this sense, efforts have been concentrated starting from the "Development Decree" n. 70/2011 and subsequent amendments. However, these possibilities have found limited practical application and have met with resistance from ministerial structures.
The conference closed by discussing the issue of the development of an industrial policy of the sectors of interest, which must necessarily be accompanied by a concentration of companies to create players of adequate size. However, the opportunity to create these "national champions" has proved controversial and the question remains completely open.
