In an interview with La Stampa, the director of Centro Einaudi Giuseppe Russo explained how the Recovery Fund can be a trailblazer for innovation in our area. Turin is a place that can be competitive on an international level and that must know how to exploit the positive aspects of the change that is taking place, driven by the pandemic.
"Every time there is a crisis that brings into play the factors of competitiveness of a territory, of one or more sectors, towards the rest of the world, a sort of chaos is generated, a reshuffling, which produces a wider variety of investments than in the past," said Russo. "We need entrepreneurs who are more risk-averse. Today we need to invest in innovation, which by nature involves risk, but which corresponds to greater returns and higher added value. This recombination must be facilitated by public intervention in a virtuous way".
In Piedmont, the sectors that have suffered most from the crisis deriving from the Covid emergency have been construction and infrastructure, which have seen a significant drop in dedicated investments. The industrial sectors were those that already before 2020 had higher growth rates, among these the most virtuous in absolute continues to be the aerospace sector that confirms itself as a significant pole of attraction as regards technology and innovation.
"Another sector to be remembered in a virtuous way is agro-food, understood however as an overall supply chain. And here the growth margins are still very high. Piedmont has always been at the forefront of exports, where the competitive advantage has historically been high. And this is a measure of how competitive we are on domestic production factors. Aerospace and agrifood fall into this classification," added Giuseppe Russo.
Turin's position as a commercial crossroads between Mediterranean and continental Europe gives the city a significant logistical advantage. The renewal of the commercial transport infrastructure may offer the city further interesting opportunities since, together with those in logistics, these are investment operations with multi-decade plans. "Logistics often carries over parts of manufacturing processes. Piedmont has both space and expertise to attract investment. Just think of the final assembly of goods, which are then shipped to the rest of the world. Turin and Piedmont can become a hub for the distribution of components: they are competitive in terms of proximity, accessibility and physical space for this type of business. Both on a national and European level".
The realization of the investments foreseen by the Recovery Plan, and the unblocking of those that have been pending for some time, will help to rebalance the investment quotas with Piedmont's GDP. Innovation will have to be mainly in the decision-making processes, which must become extremely faster. These advances and streamlining will necessarily have to be aimed at putting the focus on young people and social infrastructure, in investing the funds of the Next Generation EU.
In conclusion, Russo added: "Making a great company come to life is something that cannot be predicted. But it is possible to work to create a large virtuous network in our territory".
