It contributes over 11% to the added value of our country's economy. It brings together 2,1 million businesses and employs 3,4 million people. It is the agri-food sector, the real flagship of the Italian economy. Due to its anti-cyclical nature, it limited the impact of the crisis and already in 2015 it brought the first signs of recovery. The production and transformation phase of food alone generates a turnover of around 190 billion euros; going into more detail, Italian agriculture has a global turnover of over 55 billion euros, while the food and beverage industry produces a value of over 130 billion euros. In 2016, the sector was able to confirm itself as the second economic sector for the Italian economy, after construction.
UniCredit and the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (Mipaaf) illustrated this morning in Milan a program aimed at supporting investments and facilitating access to credit for companies operating in the Italian agri-food sector. It is the “UniCredit Mipaaf Project. Cultivate the future”, which was described in its contents by Maurizio Martina, Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, Federico Ghizzoni, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit, and Gabriele Piccini, Country Chairman Italy of the Institute. The event was followed in streaming in 40 Italian cities, involving a total of over a thousand entrepreneurs throughout the country.
«The growth recorded in 2015, the year of Expo, shows us how Made in Italy agri-food is increasingly the protagonist - declared the Minister of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies Maurizio Martina - and able to offer important opportunities, also in terms of employment . But we can and want to grow further, especially as regards exports. With the project carried out together with UniCredit, we are taking a decisive step in this direction, improving the relationship between banks and agri-food companies. There is an important destination of resources equal to 6 billion euros, but above all there is once again a specialized credit for agriculture and agri-food. Thanks to a targeted approach able to grasp the specificity of companies in the sector, we not only facilitate access to credit but we support small and medium-sized enterprises on some key fronts such as training and promotion».
«The agri-food sector – said Federico Ghizzoni, Chief Executive Officer of UniCredit – is a strategic sector for our country, which must increasingly represent our excellence abroad. The growth of the sector in the last decade has been entrusted to exports, which have increased at an average annual rate of 6%. At the end of 2015, agri-food exports were worth over 36 billion euros, with an increase of 7,4% compared to the previous year. Italy is also the world leader in the number of certified products. As at 31 January 2015, there were 278 products out of a total of 1.311 (21,1% of the total), for a production value of around 6,5 billion euros and a consumption value more than double. Despite the quality of our products and the growing interest in Made in Italy, Italy exports less than its main competitor countries. The international comparison indicates that there is still a very high export potential to be exploited, as signaled by the same phenomenon of Italian sounding, estimated at around 60 billion euros».
«The Italian agri-food chain – said Gabriele Piccini, Country Chairman Italy of UniCredit – is made up of a network of small and medium enterprises and can still do a lot in terms of organization and aggregation. Our project provides all-round support, from the export of products to their certification, from financial support to technological consultancy. All these reasons have led us to intervene organically in support of the agri-food sector. First of all, we have allocated 360 billion euros in its favor for the three-year period 6-2016: these resources are not a ceiling but a real commercial target, declined on the bank's network up to the level of the individual commercial areas in the various territories to be reached; at the same time, we will put in place a program of training interventions and innovative technological solutions for entrepreneurs in the sector».
The “UniCredit Mipaaf Project. Cultivating the future” is based on a few pillars.
The first pillar is based on the disbursement of new finance to support projects and investments by Italian agri-food companies. UniCredit has decided to allocate 6 billion euros of new credit lines to this sector in the three-year period 2016-2018. Furthermore, UniCredit will launch the new Agribond, a tranched cover dedicated to companies in the agricultural supply chain which, based on the public guarantee provided by ISMEA and exploiting its multiplier effect, will allow the activation of new disbursements initially for 300 million euros, which can be replicated over time .
The second pillar concerns training and knowledge development. In fact, an AgriBusiness School was born which is based on three macro thematic areas: Basic skills, i.e. a training course to acquire the main financial knowledge; Export Management, which includes training sessions dedicated to internationalization issues; and Innovation, which offers training sessions on particularly topical issues such as the short supply chain, traceability and precision agriculture.
The concept of "Smart Agriculture" is also very important. This is why "Value for Food" was born today, the joint initiative of UniCredit, Cisco Systems Italy (leading company in digital technologies) and Penelope Spa (leading company in digital technology and know-how in Agri-Food) aimed at to finance and implement technological evolution programs for agro-food companies, which know how to combine the needs of communication and territorial marketing, efficiency and automation of supply chain processes, dematerialisation and digitization of IT assets. The initiative aims to prepare an offer of services for farms - from training to digital platforms - supported by a funding programme. Value For Food is the tool that allows the enhancement of one's brand and the Made In Italy image (branding), the defense against widespread product counterfeiting (anti-counterfeiting), the efficiency of production processes ensuring synergy with suppliers and distributors (traceability) and the competitive advantage at an international level
