Optimistic words spoken by Alessandro Decio, CEO of SACE, who spoke during the conference organized for young entrepreneurs in Capri at the headquarters of the Grand Hotel Quisisana.
Decio, after talking about Italian exports and competitiveness, went on to describe the role of SACE and indicate the new "support" initiatives for SMEs.
Italian export: trends and challenges
- We live in an extremely complex context, in which every day we see a worsening of uncertainty and an intensification of protectionist escalation (eg the last round of sanctions that see Europe and the USA as contenders; tensions with Turkey etc.)
- This has inevitable impacts on international trade which in the first half of the year showed zero growth
- Yet, while international trade is slowing down, Italian exports continue to grow: this year it has registered + 2,7% in the first half and is preparing to close the year with a + 3,4% according to SACE SIMEST forecasts
- In the face of flat growth in international trade, Italian exports are therefore gaining market share, with a performance that is even higher than that of our most “fearful” competitors, such as Germany or This thanks to a multiplicity of factors, which include: i) Italian entrepreneurial skills; ii) diversity, flexibility and versatility of national manufacturing; iii) collaboration and great common work effort: in recent years, a great deal of system work has been done, with Ministries / Confindustria / SACE SIMEST who have worked together and made the difference.
- In 2015 our export accounted for 28% of GDP, today this share has risen to around 33%. But we must aim for further growth, equipping ourselves with medium-term objectives:
- Grow the market share of Italian exports worldwide from the current 2,8% to 3%
- Grow the weight of Italian exports on GDP from the current 33% to 37%
- Grow the extra EU quota of our exports in the world up to 49%
- To increase the average value of exports from the current 3,3 million euro to the 4,5 million euro
Competitiveness: strengths and gaps on which to work
- Towards these objectives, the strengths / gaps on which to work are manifold
- First of all we need to maintain a high promotional effort, as happened in the 2016 and 2017 legislatures.
- We also need to emphasize a strong emphasis not only on export, but above all on active internationalization, in the awareness that delocalisation in the most restrictive conception of the term is outdated, in a context in which we fight for the Made in Italy and the countries are fighting to create jobs
- We need to focus on managerial reinforcement: we have excellent entrepreneurs that the world envies us, but companies that grow abroad and take advantage of opportunities need managerial teams that combine entrepreneurial spirit with a strong technical specialization (eg CFOs , Marketing Directors)
- Where the small size of Italian companies (which imply a limited number of employees to rely on) do not allow the development of structured teams, new solutions must be promoted and encouraged such as the insertion of Temporary Export Manager, or business combinations, which allow to make "economies of scale" and share specialist skills
- Finally, it should be remembered that for a country like Italy, making medium and small companies stronger and more innovative should be a priority: yet our companies can count on tools to support innovation and lower equity than other peers in Europe. Italy is the country with the highest number of companies and the lowest number of interventions in finance equity and the least effectiveness in supporting innovation. As an example, while on support for Italian exports, France beats 3 at 0, in its institutional support for equity and innovation, France beats Italy 3 at 0 this must be the challenge.
The role of SACE SIMEST and new "support" initiatives for SMEs
- As an export and internationalization hub, we can say we are satisfied with how we have increased our support to Italian companies over the past three years, despite the adverse economic conditions.
- In the 2016-2018 we have mobilized resources for 72 billions of euros and we are today the second main risk taker at the national level, offering a contribution to GDP equal to approximately 1% o Our main challenge today - a challenge that we believe we win - is to increase the number of SMEs we serve, leading them to export more and better, to a large and diversified number of markets
- We have proven to be a leader in large operations and today we are working with 21 thousand Italian companies, mainly medium and small, compared to the few dozen of our French counterparts and hundreds of our German counterparts
- But we want to do much more and we are doing it with a set of new initiatives with which we intend to accredit ourselves as a partner also for SMEs, as we already are for medium and large companies:
- it: we have digitized 6 key products for SMEs (evaluation of counterparties, credit insurance, loans, sureties, factoring, credit recovery) and making them accessible within sacesimest.it, a very innovative digital ecosystem in the world of export credit
- Education to Export: we launched a high digital content training program with which we joined 700 PMI in their growth plans on foreign markets (you can launch an invitation to explore the program within sacesimest.it)
- Push Strategy / Business Matching: we have identified primary foreign Buyers to strengthen commercial relations and facilitate Italian supplies, acting as a forerunner above all for SMEs that could hardly come into contact with large foreign counterparts (in two years, 1,7 billions of euro have been guaranteed and 650 companies involved in business matching
- Export Coach: we have introduced alongside our widespread sales network an 12 pilot team with export experts and excellent propensity for digital tools, ready to provide door-to-door assistance to entrepreneurs
- It is precisely in the well-integrated / reasoned proposal of insurance and financial solutions, of training tools and complementary initiatives (on and off line) that we are finding our winning formula to approach, support and engage as many companies within the SACE world SIMEST