fashion, we need an industrial plan for competitiveness – Corriere.it

Fashion is a strategic sector for Italy. The concepts of beauty, craftsmanship, high quality, innovation revolve around Made in Italy, «but to continue to be competitive and concretely support even the small companies that work there, a real industrial plan for fashion is needed that guarantees certain aid and long-lasting» said Carlo Capasa, president of the National Chamber of Italian Fashion.

We are talking about an industry that closed last year with over 98 billion in turnover and which aims to reach 102 billion by the end of 2023. «It is the second largest Italian industry with 560,000 employees for around 60,000 companies. With 46% of production, we are first in Europe with over 30 points ahead of the second country, Germany». It is important not only for the values ​​it transmits but also for the wealth it represents for Europe, so much so that it can be considered the «European Silicon Valley of fashion» organized into districts. There are large and small producers. But it is above all the little ones who have the most difficulty. «While the United States has launched an investment plan (Inflaction Reduction Act) which allocates 369 billion and protectionist measures to defend US-made companies, Europe has presented a proposal to review the state aid system by assigning individual states the power to give resources to support. In this sense we would be more disadvantaged ».

There are several proposals that the Camera della Moda, also together with the Altagamma Foundation (of which Capasa is also vice president for the fashion sector) have presented to the government. «We need to understand which industries are functioning in Italy and invest in those. There are many requests, but each one is important and some require minimal effort. We want to help the most fragile realities with intelligent initiatives that are not necessarily a cost”.