TPT November 2019

A manufacturing giant and a centre of European culture ITALY is one of the world’s most iconic destinations, combining a unique cultural heritage and striking scenery with one of Europe’s top performing and most diversified economies. Located at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea and with 40 major ports and 42 airports, Italy is a strategic gateway for trade between Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It is also the second largest manufacturing economy in Europe, the fifth largest globally (World Bank, 2017) and the ninth largest exporter in the world, selling goods worth €448bn in 2017 (ISTAT, 2017), maintaining a 2.9 per cent worldwide market share (WTO, 2017) and holding a rare export trade surplus for goods (€47.5bn in 2017) among developed countries. Italy holds leading positions for trade surplus in 899 products out of 5,117 marketed goods (according to the most detailed breakdown of world trade by industry): 1 st in 353 products, 2 nd in 227 products and 3 rd in 319 products (Fondazione Symbola, 2017). With a GDP of over €1.7tn and a population of more than 60mn, Italy is the world’s ninth largest economy. It is one of only five countries in the world whose manufactured products have an export trade surplus. According to the Italian Trade Association, Italy’s control over public finance has been among the most solid in the Eurozone in the last seven years. Since 2012 the deficit has been consistently below the 3 per cent ceiling, and Italy had the highest primary surplus on average (1.1 per cent) during the 2009-2016 period. Research and innovation excellence Research and innovation are widely integrated into industrial processes with a long tradition of excellence in many fields of physics and engineering (eg robotics), life sciences (eg neurosciences), and social sciences and humanities (eg high-tech archaeological techniques). Italian researchers, internationally recognised as highly productive in terms of articles and citations, actively participate and/or lead European R&D networks, such as the CERN physics laboratory, and top-level research infrastructures of transnational interest in sectors such as aerospace, systems biology, earth observation, nanobiotechnology, marine and maritime research. Italy also ranks fifth in the EU for the contribution of high-tech and medium- tech products to the trade balance as a percentage of total exports and imports of products, and sixth for design applications (Eurostat, Research & Innovation Performance Survey, 2014). A skilled workforce 31 Italian universities are ranked in the top 500 academic institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THE, 2017). Investing in Italy means having access to unique expertise in leading sectors, such as robotics, design and engineering. Companies operating in Italy can also rely on extensive networks of SMEs and manufacturing clusters throughout the country, able to supply high-quality intermediate products specifically tailored to meet customers’ needs in a wide range of sectors (industrial machinery, metals, chemicals, plastics, paper, ceramics, textile and marine industries). Continued global growth of the middle classes and the increasing numbers of tourist visits are resulting in increased demand for ‘Made in Italy’ products that are viewed as being prestigious and of high quality.

Credit: information used with the kind permission of the Italian Trade Agency