Met report, small and medium-sized enterprises restart after two years of pandemic

Small and medium-sized Italian businesses get up and start growing again after two years of the pandemic. The reaction of the economic system to the pandemic shock was immediate and faster than what happened with the crises of 2008 and 2011. This is what emerged from the presentation of the report “MET – Monitoring Enterprise Territory 2022” entitled “Enterprises after the pandemic” (promoted by Federcasse and published by ECRA). Had there not been war in Ukraine, the company’s reaction would have been even more decisive. In fact, the report states that “The expected turnover trend, before the war in Ukraine, is considerably better for the two-year period 2022-23 than that experienced in the previous period: around 22.5% of Italian companies would have expected an increase in turnover and over 5% would have expected a sharp increase».

An important role in this context was played by the cooperative credit banks, which supported the growth of companies 4.0. «The BCCs had an increase of more than two percentage points per year between 2017 and 2021, and currently 14% of their customers are represented by 4.0 companies. The progress, in this case, was even higher than the average». We read in the report, which collects the results of a survey on over 20,000 industrial and service companies and which was illustrated today in Rome at the headquarters of the “Luigi Sturzo” Institute (Via delle Coppelle, 35), in the presence of the Director General of Federcasse Sergio Gatti. «The BCCs, community cooperative banks – reads the report presented by the President of the MET Study Center Raffaele Brancati – confirm their ability to concretely and satisfactorily accompany the development processes of the most dynamic micro and small enterprises (so-called “Enterprises 4.0 ”) and those with a vocation for export. Better performance of BCC client companies in terms of green and sustainable initiatives». As regards the BCC’s client companies, these are realities that invest more in the durability and reparability of its products and in the reduction of pollution.

The report also provides a snapshot of the causes that led companies to react positively to the crisis generated by the pandemic. «The causes have been diverse and attributable to numerous actors – reads the report – A part of the credit goes to global, European and national policies, which have been consistent with each other and with direct financial support and support for extremely significant aggregate demand ». “At least part of the merit of this reaction must be attributed to the conditions of a national production system that arrived at the Covid crisis in more solid situations than in the years immediately preceding 2008 in terms of strategies for growth and strengthening of the financial and real structure” .