Saimare is about to end the third quarter with an impressive figure: “In six months we have exceeded the volumes reached in 2019, the year before the outbreak of the pandemic”. Mino Giachino, the manager who leads one of the main Italian freight forwarders, brings home a significant result, but knows that there are still strong critical issues. The first: there is a lack of professional figures in the sector. “It’s a big problem, because without these workers it will be more difficult to fully grasp the potential of this boom.” So here is the first request from Saimare: more professional courses to quickly insert young people trained in the world of logistics “and the first step is the creation of Ita, vocational training institutes, at a regional level. Here the North West must make a difference ».
The other chapter for the relaunch of the former industrial triangle is an old point of Giachino’s and a theme dear to Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy: infrastructures. «Without the necessary works, our macro-region will continue to lose competitiveness to the advantage of other areas of Italy and Europe»
«Infrastructures, logistics, defense of the manufacturing sector and the creation of a macro-region to make the North West more competitive and attractive» reasons Giachino. Now, however, there is a further problem: “Energy is certainly a priority because, as companies also say, we risk industrial desertification but investments in infrastructures and the improvement of the logistics system and the efficiency of controls are essential to increase competitiveness of our ports, still so distant from those of Northern Europe. Since the pandemic broke out, just in time, the precision in delivery times, has skipped. And logistics times make the difference ». One solution is represented by incentives for rail transport: «A ferrobonus on a regional basis: they already do so in other parts of Italy, in Emilia for example. We need to encourage rail freight transport and the Regions can do it ».
A move that Giachino considers fundamental to relaunch the North West. «Now we realize that the North West is losing blows compared to the North East and that some of its areas are just above the South in terms of competitiveness. I launched the first alarm in 2009, when I was Undersecretary of Transport. Now fortunately Liguria has made important choices for the future and, in addition to the Gronda, some are financed by the NRP. The problems of the Terzo Valico and the monstrous delay in the construction of the TAV push the acceleration of infrastructural investments and characterize them as a priority because the development of the European or world economy does not wait too long for our country. “We need to think of a regional Ferrobonus added to the national Ferrobonus, to make the landing of goods in Genoa or Savona and distribution by rail in Northern Italy and Europe much more convenient”. Not only that: “Turin should work at TAValley, which includes the Rhone-Alpes regions with Lyon, Piedmont, Liguria and Lombardy: an area of almost 800 billion GDP with 30 between research centers and universities”. For Genoa then, explains the CEO of Saimare, the gaze must also be turned towards the South: “If it is true that globalization is regionalising, Genoa must aim to become the capital of the Mediterranean by involving the countries bordering that sea, starting with those of North Africa ».
Ultimately, the strategy is clear: «Turin, Genoa and Milan with high-speed trains will be reachable in an hour and therefore they have to work in an Alpine macro-region with Lyon and Switzerland. In this area there are over 1000 billion of GDP and Genoa would become the gateway of this macro-region towards the Mediterranean, Africa and the East ».