iedmont
has long sought inward investment. As far back as 1865, Turin’s
City Council issued a formal Invitation to National and Foreign Capitalists
and Manufacturers, published in Italian, French, English and German,
extolling the attractions awaiting them. These days, such publications
are considerably slicker, and the attractions on offer more diverse,
with much of the material being provided by the Agency for Investments
in Turin and Piedmont (ITP), a private foundation set up by the
region’s main public institutions and private companies in 1997.
Piedmont
offers a range of incentives to foreign investors, including tax relief
on investments in new establishments and plants, grants for hiring personnel,
subsidies for educating and retraining workers, and finance for research
and development in technological innovation. ITP works with potential
investors in identifying and applying for incentives and financing for
projects.
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The
agency also smooths the way for foreign companies when it comes to paperwork.
“It is very important to serve potential customers who choose our
area,” says ITP president, Andrea Pininfarina.
“By helping them find good locations and good prices – and
above all in avoiding problems with Italian bureaucracy. This is the
key to what we are trying to do.”
Turin has a reputation as one of Italy's cities with the least red tape.
“Turin has a much more linear bureaucracy compared with other cities,”
Mr Pininfarina says. “I can prove this by citing companies that
have taken advantage of this. For example, Telecom Italia, which installed
its telecommunications offices here in Turin in a very short period
of time.”
Though
regional investment promotion agencies like ITP are common in many parts
of northern Europe, ITP was the first such body in Italy. “It represents
an absolutely unique activity here,” confirms Mr Pininfarina. “There
are many similar initiatives on a national level, but they provide nothing
new in comparison with the diverse initiatives in the north of Europe.
With this in mind, the first thing we did when we started was to examine
what other companies were doing all round Europe.”
ITP’s services have been helping Piedmont adjust to a rapidly-changing
economic environment, not least in Turin. “Over the past 20 years,
165,000 people were laid off by the city’s industrial sector, and
about 140,000 were hired by the city’s service industries,”
Mr Pininfarina says. “The level of unemployment has remained more
or less the same, but the really dramatic change is that people are
working less for the industrial sector and more in the services market.”
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Foreign
investment played an important role in Piedmont’s industrial development.
As Mr Pininfarina’s colleague, ITP managing director Paolo
Corradini, points out: “After Fiat, the main employers
in our region are foreign companies, with more than 80,000 employees.
The first multinational company to set up in Italy around 1912 was Michelin,
which is still here.”
The challenge now is to woo companies involved in new types of industries,
especially those connected with the internet economy and other aspects
of information and communications technology. The main foreign investors
to have entered Piedmont since ITP was established are Motorola, Colt
Telecom, Telegate and Eutelsat.
ITP is especially keen to bring in investment from Americans, who are
already a significant force, along with the British, French, Germans
and Swedes. “We are in partnership with an agency in Manchester
to develop marketing activities in the US, and also with similar local
agencies in Sweden, France, Spain and Germany,” says
Mr Corradini.
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