The eighth SACE Export Report 2014-17 was presented on Wednesday 12 March in Milan (in collaboration with Borsa Italiana) and we have already dealt with it on the lines of FIRSTonline same day. Subsequently, SACE began its traditional tour of the peninsula to illustrate its main considerations alongside local banks and entrepreneurs. Its title, "Rethink - Evolutions and perspectives of the new Italian export", echoes its content: consider the reasons for the current situation and try to identify ways of developing our exports in order to get out of the crisis.
An optimistic background emerges from the SACE analysis. Italian exports pick up the pace again and, after the almost stagnant performance in 2013 (-0,1%), it is preparing to score a +6,8% in 2014, accelerating the pace until it reaches a value of around 539 billion euros in 2017a average growth rate in the four-year period of 7,3%. But one wonders: is this optimism in a manner, or does it find its foundation in an accurate analysis of the situation and prospects of our exports?
The crisis and SMEs: space for innovation, training, exports
SACE's analysis starts from the evolution of the Italian economy in the worst period of the crisis, between 2007 and 2012. Exporting companies, and SMEs in particular, have been influenced in various ways, which can be traced back to two general problems.
The first is that the crisis has made access to credit even more difficultespecially for smaller companies. The cause of this difficulty lies on the one hand in the greater prudence of the banks, burned by more than one experience of non-performing loans; on the other, in lower profitability of SMEs, which caused its creditworthiness and rating to drop.
The second is attributable to structural problems of our small businesses, inherent above all to their small size (and consequent low capitalization), to the scarce managerial capacity, to the still weak and unstructured approach to international markets and, in general, to internationalization strategies.
Starting from this premise, it is possible to identify what it is the only way out of the vicious circle crisis - drop in demand - drop in incomes and employment - less development - more debt. This strategy can only pass for one set of policies and measures aimed at a:
- facilitate access to credit for SMEs;
- increase the propensity towards phenomena such as aggregation, the creation of business networks and districts;
- increase the chance of new investments, in Italy and abroad, especially in research, development and innovation, training of human resources;
- create space for new hires, also with tax and contractual benefits, of new professional figures, adequately trained through multidisciplinary paths in sectors export oriented.
The various governments that have followed one another in recent years, absorbed by the contingent problems, they have not been able to set up a business policy that has the fundamental themes of innovation, training and exports at its centre. It has been since 2008 that international trade, precisely in a country where it is vital for development and growth, no longer has the dignity of having a separate ministry, at most there is only a deputy minister or undersecretary ( with limited powers) in the Ministry of Economic Development. Support for internationalization was reduced only to the promotional phase, which is important but insufficient if it is not followed by the phases of active support for exports and foreign investments by our companies. The resurrection of the ICE - still unfinished - and the system missions are fine, but once accompanied in foreign markets, companies must be put in a position to remain there in full competitiveness, through a network of assistance services even in the phases after-sales and commercial and production establishment in foreign countries. Since 2008, only one regulatory provision has concerned a rationalization of the contribution interventions to various internationalization processes (commercial penetration, foreign investments, feasibility studies, etc.), and it is still unfinished since December 2012, because Simest has not yet issued the circulars implementing. The others have only made cuts in subsidies and contributions, without, however, tidying up a subject that is still extremely tangled.
SACE was one of the few public entities that have been able to combine some activities aimed at achieving some of the objectives described above (especially that of improving access to credit) with maintaining a market mentality, indispensable in a moment like the present and which has produced excellent income results: in the 10 years since it became a joint-stock company (since 1 January 2004), SACE has generated 4 billion euro of ordinary dividends and 6 billion of extraordinary dividends. For the rest, we are still waiting for the reorganization of the other bodies (Simest, Finest, Informest, Chambers of Commerce), promised for many years and never implemented: in the meantime, these bodies get by without really affecting the reality of Italian exports.
So, from this point of view, SACE's optimism seems a bit generous, unless a change in the industry's growth policy is taken.
The emerging and our fears
The SACE Report does not seem to share the fears that many have about the future trend of emerging economies. In fact he claims that the process of repositioning Italian exports towards emerging markets will be increasingly strengthened. In five years, their weight on overall exports has increased by about 4 percentage points, against a similar reduction in the incidence of advanced products; the EU now accounts for less than half of Italian exports.
Despite the inevitable discontinuity of their growth processes, emerging markets will generate the best opportunities for companies of the "new export". The investment effort they are carrying out, especially in the manufacturing sector, represents an excellent opportunity for Italian technologies, while the growth of the middle class, which will continue in the future, will fuel the demand for more traditional Made in Italy products.
The top market ranking, drawn up by SACE to signal the markets with the greatest export potential, includes a mix of destinations that is difficult to label: on the one hand, it fully reflects the prevalence of major emerging markets (China, Russia, Brazil and Türkiye) and the statement of new less traveled destinations (Indonesia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates); on the other hand, confirm the relevance of advanced markets now acquired such as the United States and the United Kingdom. SACE is back, after a few days, on theimportance of the US market, on the occasion of President Obama's visit, recalling that with export growth rates that will approach 9% on average per year over the next four years (2014-2017), the USA is the sixth foreign market in the ranking Top Market of SACE. Thanks to the increased confidence of American consumers that will once again feed domestic demand, the States will drive the performance of Italian exports to advanced countries: above-average results are expected in the sectors that symbolize theItalian lifestyle, such as consumer goods (+8,3%) and, even more so, agri-food (+9,4%).
Out of the charts, looking at a medium-long term horizon, those that the Report defines as possible "next generation" targets deserve a mention: markets to which our exports do not yet register high levels but could find excellent margins in the future (Philippines , Malaysia, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique).
What has also emerged from our series of interventions on around twenty emerging countries is therefore confirmed, which we have been covering for more than a month on the pages of FIRST online: it is not possible to outline a single picture for such culturally and economically different countries, but apart from some countries with geopolitical problems (Russia and Turkey) we do not think we can speak of a generalized crisis of the emerging markets.
SACE, optimism and privatisation
Other considerations of SACE do understand optimism which pervades the Rethink Report: the awareness that exports are increasingly necessary and indeed indispensable; the demonstration that internationalized companies are those that demonstrate greater resistance to adversity and those that are more solid and capable of redirecting production to intercept growth; the good name and prestige that now accompany the world “odd couple” of Made in Italy, i.e. capital goods and agricultural goods; the excellent performance of many of our main industrial districts.
At this point the very important and delicate discourse of the privatization of SACE, which could become reality within the year, even if the form and extent of the share package that CDP will place on the market has not yet been defined. The concern that arises from this announcement is that you don't change SACE's mentality and approach, And that continue its service activities in favor of companies that export and invest abroad, in particular those, such as financial guarantees, which have mostly favored access to credit for these companies in recent years.
However, such an operation is not new: in France, Coface was listed on the Stock Exchange maintaining the State guarantee on the insurance commitments taken on by the company within the limits set by annual provisional laws; the same happened in Germany with Hermes, which is part of the Allianz group. If the privatization process is conducted correctly, the same could also happen in Italy. Perhaps it would be appropriate to provide for some limits, such as: a limitation on the share quota that can be purchased by individual new shareholders; a minimum quota to be placed on the stock market with small shareholders, to make SACE a real one public company; the ability to keep one golden shares public at least for the services guaranteed by the State; the reconfirmation of a management that has survived six different governments with the excellent results described above, always combining a reason of public service with the perspective of managing a healthy and profitable company.
But on this, allow us too to nourish a certain optimism: the industrious optimism of the will, not the futile optimism of hope.
