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National Pact for Exports: Advantages and opportunities for Umbrian SMEs

07 May 2021

The Councillor for Economic Development of the Umbria Region, Michele Fioroni and the president of Sviluppumbria, Michela Sciurpa, opened the conference The National Pact for Exports: Advantages and Opportunities for Umbrian SMEs which was held on 6 May, and which registered considerable interest among the many companies and institutions that followed the event. The challenging goal of the pact is to open Umbria to the world and to spread the culture of business internationalization.

Councillor Fioroni, in his opening speech, underlined the importance of internationalization for the dimensional growth of enterprises. “Export and digital,” he said, “are today the main drivers of business growth and are two increasingly interconnected elements, thanks to the disruptive role of digital technologies in the strategies of international market penetration. It is therefore essential to launch a cultural challenge that leads entrepreneurs, especially those of smaller companies, to understand that digital technology is not the prerogative only of large companies, but represents a fundamental diversification tool, now accessible at ever lower costs. Our role as administrators,” continued the councillor, “is therefore to update policies in order to provide concrete support for these trends. From this point of view, in the next few years an increasingly important role will be played by financial instruments supporting internationalization"

The event, organized by the Umbria Region’s agency for economic development and moderated by Luca Silla, part time professor at Luiss Business School, brought together an exceptional panel, with Alessandro Terzulli, chief economist of SACE, whose keynote analysed the lights and shadows of Umbrian exports in the light of the macro-trends in progress; Mariangela Siciliano, head of SACE Education, who presented SACE products and services for the management of export and internationalization risks; Carlo de Simone, head of Indirect Channels - SIMEST, who illustrated past experiences and future prospects in terms of resources and subsidized financing for internationalization, and Alessandro Aureli, ICE Business Services Office, who presented the wide range of internationalization services offered by ICE.

Also taking part were a trio of exceptional “export champions”: Riccardo Stefanelli, co-CEO of Brunello Cucinelli SpA, Daniele Tonti, Chief Strategy Officer OMA and President Umbria Aerospace Cluster and Lorenzo Zurino, CEO The One Company and President IEF Italian Export Forum who, through their testimonies, gave valuable advice to the participating companies to successfully face foreign markets and indicated common goals to increase the international projection of Umbrian companies with the support of regional and national institutions.

“In a framework of general recovery of the economy and international trade, Umbrian companies can look to 2021 with cautious optimism,” said Alessandro Terzulli, chief economist of SACE, “especially considering the recovery of demand from Germany and the United States, respectively the first and third largest markets for regional exports. Umbrian exports have been affected by the pandemic, registering a drop of 12.8% in 2020 (the national figure is -9.7%) with 3.8 billion euros in sales, but will be able to benefit from the growth opportunities of foreign markets, with the awareness of having to quickly adapt strategies and tools to a constantly evolving context”.

“Sviluppumbria is ready to accept the challenge launched by Regional Councillor Fioroni to translate the new regional guidelines on internationalization into concrete measures.” said Sviluppumbria’s president, Michela Sciurpa. “A challenge that passes through a real cultural change and that will see the agency increasingly engaged in scouting and accompanying our companies in their internationalization paths. In order to best support the growth of Umbrian exports, we start from a diligent phase of listening to the needs of companies and we activate all possible synergies between agencies and regional and national instruments. The success of this initiative,” she concluded, “confirms us that these are the right directions to start a new constructive dialogue between public and private actors and to plan together the future instruments to support regional internationalization”.

(Press release issued by the Agenzia Umbrianotizie)

 

View the recording of the webinar (in Italian)

 

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