The “perfect storm” that is hitting the economy, amidst skyrocketing energy costs and a shortage of raw materials, threatens to overwhelm several SMEs: “The risk that there will be a stop in production for some small companies is real. But unlike the big ones, for SMEs that are more fragile, a stop of even a week could result in a definitive closure. For this there is great fear and expectation ». Giovanni Baroni, for four months president of the National Small Industry and vice president of Confindustria, thus describes the state of mind of the associated small and medium-sized enterprises “very worried” about the current situation and in “great expectation of economic but also structural measures by of the Government that mitigate the effects of this crisis “. And it does so on the eve of a “moment of identity to listen to our Association that will serve to collect the requests and then arrive at the moment of the proposals outside”: Baroni in these days is leaving, in fact, for a roadmap on the territory throughout Italy, which will culminate in the Small Industry Meetings to be held on June 17 in Bari. An opportunity to talk about the current emergency and macro issues such as human capital, digitization, green change and finance for growth. “Because even in this moment of crisis there are opportunities to grow, I am thinking of new supply chains linked to the green in which SMEs can find new growth paths”.
Let’s start with the expensive bills. What do SMEs need?
The solutions identified by Confindustria also apply to smaller companies. Cyclical measures are needed to try to mitigate the impact of the bill: therefore liquidity-related operations that cannot last only two months, but must be of greater scope. And then there is the issue of the gas price cap, to be done immediately at a European or Italian level, commensurate with the real price and the real duration of the contracts.
How to overcome this obstacle?
First of all clearing the ground of a big misunderstanding: none of us are saying to go and renegotiate long-term contracts with suppliers including Russian ones. We,
as President Bonomi clearly said, we are asking for a transparency operation. In other words, we ask to understand if the prices we are seeing on the European market are actually the real ones or if there is speculation behind them.
But is there really a risk that production will stop in some case?
Energy-intensive sectors do not only concern large groups such as those of steel. I am thinking, for example, of the small companies in the North specialized in die-casting that perhaps make components of the supply chain. Moreover, for SMEs there is a great difficulty in transferring the cost increases in the supply chain. And if, as sometimes happens, you have a large customer who represents 80-90% of production, then it is difficult to revise prices. The risk, therefore, that some SMEs will stop is high and, as happened in the pandemic, those who stop even for a short time risk never reopening.
But is there also a problem of domestic and foreign demand?
At the moment the question is there. The Italian one remained stable even if it did not explode. The foreign one resists: the great difficulty is being able to make prices within a year because many do not know how they will procure certain raw materials. Small companies then do not have the strength to make large stocks and in practice they work in the dark on prices.