Italy boasts a good competitive position in the space economy: in second place for the incidence of research and development, fourth for exports and seventh in the G20 for public spending budget in relation to GDP. This is what emerged from the report published by Intesa Sanpaolo on the occasion of the premiere world space day.
Space is becoming an increasingly central theme in the economic and social debate, given its strategic importance for the future development of countries. With the entry of an increasing number of private players, the opportunities that will come from the space sector are many. According to the Space Foundation, the value generated by activities connected to the space economy amounted to 447 billion dollars worldwide in 2020, double that achieved just ten years ago.
Despite the growth in private sector investments, public resources still represent (even for the next few years) the most important development driver. Italy is positioned in seventh position among the G-20 countries for public expenditure budget in the space sector, in relation to GDP, and in second position for the incidence of public R&D in space on the total (around 2020 billion in 1,5 euros), highlighting the role that space plays in the national interest.
Even the attention paid to space in the Pnrr and in thebilateral agreement between Rome and Paris, as well as the recent appointment of Milan for the organization of the International Astronautical Congress in 2024, confirm this interest and awareness of the strategic nature of the supply chain.
With a share on world exports by 6,9% (average 2015-2019, data in current dollars), Italy ranks fourth among the main leaders in the sector, after the United States, France and Germany, showing a better positioning than the figure for the whole economy, where our country with a weight of about 3% occupies the ninth position in the international ranking.
Also in terms of innovative activity, Italy shows a good result, placing itself in fifth place among the main patenting countries, with a 4,1% share of world patents relating to the space economy (years 2013-2018), which is compared with the eleventh position for total patents, revealing a good specialization in space activities, as also confirmed by the RTA (Revealed Technology Advantage) index, with values above 2, in the first places among the main economies.
The analysis also includes a extensive mapping of the 286 companies in the space economy supply chain in Italy: companies associated with the Italian Space Agency, members of aerospace technology clusters, participants in Horizon 2020 projects, beneficiaries of loans from the Structural Funds. These are "young" companies, born after 2000 and mainly small in size (less than 2 million in turnover).
Subjects specialized in production niches with a high technological content, which offer personalized and cutting-edge solutions, are flanked by some large players, integrated and with a highly diversified offer.
Another aspect that emerges from the photograph of the main sectors involved is the strong multidisciplinarity that characterizes the supply chain: the space economy is in fact a world in which a variety of different activities coexist. This element of mingling between sectors and production specializations also favors collaboration between the various subjects, encouraged to work together by pooling their knowledge and skills.
Finally, some of the possibles are presented future technology trends of the economy of space, from space tourism to the development of new production processes in the absence of gravity, which offer ideas for further reflections. The enormous economic potential linked to the space economy pushes towards a new race, which will also lead to the definition of new geopolitical balances and which will also require a renewed regulatory framework.
