“Policy of small steps, and above all focus on industry and culture together: glamor without manufacturing is fluff, and with fluff Made in Italy is dead. The identity of a country is culture+industry”. He has very clear ideas Carlo Calenda, Deputy Minister for Economic Development and with a corporate background between Ferrari, Sky and Confindustria (as well as son of director Cristina Comencini), who spoke today in Milan at the shareholders' meeting of Italian Fashion System (Smi), which the new president Claudio Marenzi himself recalled was “the largest textile association in the western world”.
For years, the debate on the textile and fashion industry has been fervent, main vehicle of made in Italy with a global turnover of around 50 billion euros: holds? Doesn't it hold? How much does it hold? Smi's annual report shows that the sector, unlike the positive signs recorded in 2011, in the last year it has not been spared by the crisis: turnover -3,2% (51 billion, in 2007 there were 56), consumption -9,8%, number of companies -3,5% (almost 10 have been missing since 2006) and total employees down to 423 (-5,3%).
But above all, it is a fact that causes concern: exports, the workhorse of the entire Italian economic system, in particular of excellence such as textiles, show a "minus" sign three years after the last time: -0,8%. Here too, Deputy Minister Calenda has very clear ideas: "The companies that export do it very well, but there are still only a few that do it". So here is the communication that triggers the applause of the audience: the Letta government has doubled the fund for the promotion of the sector, allocating around 10 million euros, "which will also be invested to go looking for medium-small companies directly on the territory and make them exporters”.
Small steps, especially in this period of scarce resources, and with a concrete vision, far from the crap of Made in Italy that always makes it anyway. “There is for example the free trade issue – Calenda explains again to the association of the textile chain -: we must take note that he is dead, because countries like India and Brazil have closed down and the USA are pursuing a separate policy. But the way out is: a bilateral agreement with the United States, which serves as a model for the entire system, because trust that if standards are agreed with the Americans, the next day these standards become a reference point to which others adapt”.
Other than Datagate, therefore: "It's not really a good idea to enter into conflict with the US now, precisely in this moment of difficulty for the textile industry, which is the area in which the Americans apply the most tariff barriers (already for some time Italy is only the 11th country from which the States import textiles & fashion, with a share of less than 2%, ed.). Also because they, unlike us Europeans, are already betting on the countertrend of manufacturing exports (delocalization of production, ed): manufacturing flows in the world are declining for the first time and this is happening because the ratio of cost of labour, for example between Italy and China, which a few years ago was 1 in 33”.
However, Europe does not seem to be betting on it, just as it does not seem to be betting on free trade within itself: "I will fight hard on this - promises the Deputy Minister for Economic Development of the Letta government -, starting from case of leather, which is bringing many of our companies to their knees. Some Eastern countries have imposed duties on the export of this material, and this protectionism, as well as not being part of the community spirit, risks destroying jobs in Europe itself”.
Also because, according to data from SMI itself, it is precisely Italy that invoices almost a third of the entire gross product of continental textiles and fashion: 31%, thanks to 27,6% of the companies operating in the sector. A sign of a strong system and still, despite everything, in a mood of optimism: “I noticed this at the latest edition of Pitti – concludes Calenda -: it was perhaps the first time in which almost all the entrepreneurs I met told me 'We are confident, we will make it'.”
