Everyone strongly insists on one point: the resilience, which the economic fabric is showing in the current situation and has also shown in the most recent crises, is closely linked to exports and to the drive that continues to guarantee the country system and companies, SMEs in the lead. A push that benefited from the driving force of a three-pronged outpost, consisting of Agenzia Ice, Sace and Simest, which further strengthened the tools to support businesses, also in the wake of the latest government decisions. Thus in the first round table “The prospects for export”, which yesterday opened the pre-summit on Made in Italy organized by Il Sole 24 Ore and Ft in collaboration with Sky Tg24, Pasquale Salzano, president of Simest, Carlo Ferro issue one of the Ice Agency, and Dario Liguti, Sace’s chief underwriting officer, outlined the perimeter of resilience and the role of this outpost in favor of the system.
The companies of the peninsula were therefore able to leverage extensive support which, explained Pasquale Salzano, recently reconfirmed for a second term as president of Simest, saw, no more than two days ago, the grounding of two new instruments, from Fund 394 that the company manages on behalf of the Farnesina, which are intended for companies impacted by the conflict in Ukraine: «These are two subsidized loans at zero interest and a non-repayable share of up to 40 percent. The first started yesterday (Tuesday for those who read, ed) and supports Italian exporters with a turnover linked for more than 20% to the countries affected by the conflict (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). The second product, which will start in September, will instead be reserved for companies whose direct and indirect procurement was heavily dependent on those territories “, said Salzano not before having highlighted the importance of product and process innovation. as a lever on which companies must focus in order not to lose positions in the field of international competitiveness.
On the front of the countermeasures prepared to deal with the reverberations of the war, Dario Liguti, chief underwriting officer of Sace, also returned, who spoke about the double leg of the group between longer-term programs (the Green Guarantee introduced by the Simplification Decree which, from 2020 to today, it has seen operations for 5 billion supported) and more emergency measures such as the Italian Guarantee (42 billion mobilized from April 2020 to date for almost 6400 guarantees issued) and the latest interventions included in the Aid Decree. “With this provision – said Liguti – the government has entrusted us with another mandate to support companies which provides for our emergency commitment to support the liquidity of companies and a structural commitment of investments for relaunch and growth”. Liguti then recalled the range of insurance-financial products thanks to which «Sace accompanies companies entering foreign markets for the first time up to those already diversified looking for new outlets».
In short, companies have been able to resist by exploiting the tools at their disposal. And this is clearly reflected in the numbers of Italian exports, lined up by Ferro. «If we consider – the president of the Ice Agency specified – the 6.5 percentage points recovered from GDP in 2021, 80% of these derive from exports. Which, in the first four months of 2022, have already marked a growth of 20.7%, while between 2020 and 2021 the step forward was 7.5 percentage points above the pre-pandemic levels “. In short, one more confirmation that, even in the midst of the latest crises, including that triggered by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, exports have not slowed down. And Ferro remembers Ice’s role in internationalization “which is to help companies create a system and continue creating a system to create new, more modern and flexible things”.