One-year postponement of fiscal and tax obligations, higher allocations than the 500 million announced, immediate payment by the public administration. These are some of the measures that must be implemented immediately to revive the economy of Emilia Romagna shaken by the earthquake. This is the indication of the regional Confindustria, which has drawn up a detailed map of the difficult situation for the senators of the Industry commission.
An economic damage of 4 billion to add the effect on the supply chains, 5.000 damaged companies (checks still in progress) for over 25 workers involved, 15.000 workers for the industrial sector alone for which recourse to social safety nets is foreseeable, 600 companies directly damaged industries. These are the heavy consequences of the recent and continuous earthquakes. Approximately 35.000 companies (in the industrial and tertiary sectors) with over 130 employees are located in the affected areas, the production area directly affected by the earthquake produces over 10% of Emilia-Romagna's GDP, equal to approximately 15 billion euros per year ( 1% of the national GDP) the earthquake hit the "points of excellence" of Italian industry at an international level (biomedical, ceramics, agro-food) and fundamental "links" of the subcontracting chain of many production chains (mechanical).
And the occasion of the hearing in the Senate was used to put forward precise proposals to encourage a relaunch of the activities:
- Fiscal, tax and social security compliance. For Confindustria, the commitment to suspend all these obligations until September 2012 is a “totally insufficient time limit. It is necessary to foresee a longer period of time at least up to June 2013. To think that companies are in a position in December 2012 to pay wages, bonuses, advances, Imu balance, etc. it is unrealistic and such as to interrupt any recovery effort”.
- Credit and financial interventions. Compared to the announced interventions, specific proposals are underlined: a) to foresee a greater allocation (500 million euros for 2012 are completely insufficient) with extensions of the ceilings with respect to that envisaged for Abruzzo; b) all credit and financial support interventions, with the direct involvement of the banks (starting from the Central Guarantee Fund), must be automatic and not linked to the creditworthiness of the companies; c) all the tools must also be available to large companies (these represent the majority of ceramics and biomedical); d) it is necessary to provide for the immediate payment of the suppliers of the Public Administration (including the Local Health Authorities) in the affected municipalities.
