Southern Italy attracts foreign investors
The signal launched by Novartis, the Swiss multinational drug company, which has submitted to ZES Campania the documentation for an investment in upgrading Torre Annunziata site, where it has been operating for years and with remarkable results.
The first time a multinational company visited Tangier Med in Morocco, nowdays one of the Mediterranean’s major global logistics hubs, was Renault in 2012.
One and a half billion euro for the on-site production of Dacia (with Nissan), using the fiscal and procedural benefits of the free zone. That is, low taxes and, above all, an enormous ease of transport to all world destinations. It was the fortune of the French car factory and especially of Tangier because other large multinational companies, not only in the automotive sector, did the same, with considerable economic returns.
The example risks being objectively excessive for the prospects of the eight Special Economic Zones in south of Italy. However, The signal launched by Novartis, the Swiss multinational drug company, which has submitted to ZES Campania the documentation for an investment in upgrading Torre Annunziata site, where it has been operating for years and with remarkable results, is nonetheless newsworthy. Because it is the first of a multinational and, as the commissioner for Zes, Giosy Romano, observes, “it can open the way to other foreign capital, a fundamental and strategic objective to guarantee the necessary competitiveness of the Special Economic Zones”.
PROSPECTS
Novartis is a pioneer for the South among multinationals, but the hope is that it will not remain an isolated case. And, above all, that foreign investors will follow, like Renault for Tangier. In the spring, the Intesa San Paolo Group, which has made available no less than five billion euro to support investments in the Special Economic Zones linked to the ports of the South and North, will promote the Italian maritime free zones in South-East Asia and America with a new road show aimed at gathering interest and availability among international economic operators. But UniCredit is also aiming to strengthen its availability towards potential investors, proving that the banking system still strongly believes in the development of the Zes.
Source: Il Mattino