Looking at the glass half empty, the economic update to the first
2021 semester of the Marche economy offered by the Bank of Italy requires a
profound change in that model which, up to 2000, made GDP travel
region consistently above the Italian average and then embarked on a descent
became structural, with a negative spread of about ten percentage points.
That the pandemic would require change was evident, as were the main ones
criticality: small size, low propensity to export, difficulty in operating in
network, infrastructural isolation (tangible and intangible).
That the recovery is not limited to a rebound
Today, the crisis delivers a few more elements to the stakeholders, especially the public ones, because the recovery that occurred in the first half (+ 8.5% of GDP, better than + 7.6% of the national average) does not stop at the simple if substantial rebound. This is because the clear improvement between January and June, actually driven mainly by the performance of the second quarter, is based in particular on three sectors of the regional economy that are closely linked to each other. Construction, which benefited from the acceleration of post-earthquake reconstruction and the Superbonus, has exceeded the level prior to the pandemic: but these are temporary support. “In five years I hope that the construction sites opened in the crater area will all close,” hopes the director of the Ancona branch of the Bank of Italy, Gabriele Magrini Alunno, while the tax incentives will end even earlier.
Circular economy
The key word is already reuse today, but according to Rodolfo Brandi, president of Ance Pesaro Urbino, “before the culture of recycling can become inherent in production processes, it is necessary to educate the actors of the various supply chains, intervening with strategies that require reuse and at the same time also intervene on waste producers in order to incentivize a virtuous selection process upstream of the conferment ».
The mechanics
Mechanics grows, weighing over a third of the increase in regional exports in the semester, entrepreneurs complain of delays in the procurement of raw materials and exorbitant costs, they try to hire but do not find specialized technicians: ” a sector that is no longer just metalworking: in the Marche region high-tech machinery is made, which ends up all over the world ». And this requires the supply chain connected to the big regional players to innovate and digitize quickly.
Furniture and footwear
Construction returning to work and companies asking for machinery are the parameters on which the important recovery of the furniture sector is based, second in weight in regional manufacturing. The fashion sector also finds space in this markedly improved economic situation compared to last year, albeit with a lower intensity; in particular, footwear – which has one of the main Italian districts in the Fermano-Maceratese area – continues to get out of the penalty suffered during the long days of the lockdown and pays for the choice of consumers in purchasing goods considered not of primary necessity; a caution which, however, is not valid in the luxury market.