The Veneto “has done, and will do, everything necessary to bring the Italian Intel plant to the site identified in Vigasio, in the Verona area”. Therefore “all the tasks have been done”, and at the moment there is no step backwards or second thoughts: in compliance with the confidentiality clause due in these cases, the position of the Region led by Luca Zaia remains the same – to work in silence, since last September, the German news agency Reuters drew attention to the Veneto site – while the necessary dialogue with the Italian government continues.
Changed conditions
In the background, however, there is a slowdown in Intel’s choices and the changed economic policy conditions in the United States that could lead to a review of investment programs, while it transpires that the Santa Clara group did not find interlocutors from the Italian government at the Davos forum. In recent days, the unanimous vote by the Regional Council of the resolution “Regional actions for the establishment of Intel in the Verona area” – which offers support to the Regional Council in its effort to promote, in synergy with the industrial world, the establishment of the US multinational, which produces chips and semiconductors, in Vigasio, for the assembly and packaging part – has given the sign of transversal support to this game: «The investment will give development and employment to the territory of the Northeast – reads the text – with important repercussions for the entire supply chain connected to hitech. The Resolution also hopes that the Regional Council will initiate an intensification of the pre-contractual phase, in order to be able to propose better market solutions to the partner compared to other potential interlocutors”.
The logistics factor
If the region is ready, so is the province, eighth in Italy in terms of competitiveness index (based on Cresme data) and with all indicators growing, starting with those that can make it interesting for an investment by the American multinational. «We know that the game is now being played not at a local level but at a national, or perhaps supranational level – explains the president of Confindustria Verona Raffaele Boscaini – We put our data on the table: a territory rich in businesses, 8.7 for every 100 inhabitants, with above the national average”.
In contrast (positive) also the signal that comes from demography: Verona has one of the lowest old age indexes, and is in sixteenth place in Italy (first in Veneto) both for the percentage of young people and for the positive migratory balance; the presence of the university also means capacity for research and training of well-prepared and up-to-date people. And then there is logistics, the other factor that has already brought other foreign multinationals to this area of the North-East – a crossroads between North and South – which have opened Italian offices and branches here (among others (such as Coca Cola, Zalando, Amazon, Aldi).
Investments in the field
A picture that continues to get richer: at the beginning of December, the expected green light arrived for the project financing proposal of 7.2 billion in investments presented by Autostrada del Brennero Spa to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. For the managing director, Diego Cattoni «a news that not only Autobrennero, but all the territories from the Brennero to Modena were waiting for. Our proposal is aimed at reconfiguring mobility along the Brenner axis”. In the province of Verona alone, the planned investments are worth 1.2 billion: the Company is ready to transform this axis into the first Green Corridor in Europe: if Intel has planned to establish the new European poles between Italy and Germany, these data can have a significant weight.