abstract：Recent research shows that shoe manufacturing has very ancient origins. Even Boccaccio, the well-known Renaissance author of the “Decameron”, in the fifth short story of the eighth day mentions Italian shoes produced by the artisans of Montegranaro and Sant’Elpidio a Mare.

Cruciality of the territorial dimension

Recent research shows that shoe manufacturing has very ancient origins. Even Boccaccio, the well-known Renaissance author of the “Decameron”, in the fifth short story of the eighth day mentions Italian shoes produced by the artisans of Montegranaro and Sant’Elpidio a Mare. So beautiful and precious, they were exported not only to Tuscany, but also in the Balkan countries. The development of this phenomenon was very fast: in the fifteenth century several artisan shops were born in Sant’Elpidio a Mare giving life to the so called “Arti dei Calzolai”. Only at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a footwear district was established, expanding then to the municipalities of Sant’Elpidio Elpidio a Mare, Montegranaro, Monte Urano and Monte San Giusto, where fabric or leather slippers were produced and exported to the neighboring kingdoms. With the introduction of the first sewing machines, production increased a lot and the need to involve workers arose, including workers from neighboring municipalities as well.

Much of research and theorization about early industrial clusters focused on production types in which most of the inputs and businesses of a given industry were concentrated in a specific region. Nowadays, in the modern industrial economy, the concept of a district is quite widespread. In this scenario the Marche region represents a unique example for quality and excellence and a case that has also become a successful model all over the world.

Today the districts represent a backbone of the Italian industrial structure and an important basis of the entire national economy’s growth of the last thirty years of the past century. Since many years, however, almost in the whole Italian industry significant transformations are underway involving the relationships between companies, the differentiation of their strategies, the balance between local roots and international openness. Rather than a static system of companies and technologies “stuck”, over time, individual participants of the industrial district “symbiosis” are changing significantly. Even the ecosystem as a whole has adapted to the growing global competitive pressure. Before 2004, the industrial district model was not officially recognized beyond the academic level, while today its institutional structure is very active in supporting the entire productive and social system and in offering real services. All companies that are part of this contest, over time have in fact exchanged their knowledge and skills with other companies of their same sector and geographical area, thus allowing different complementarities, which have determined their success worldwide.

To date, there are more than 2,900 active companies in the Marche footwear district with almost 20,000 employees, an important number that is moreover not sufficient to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for skilled labor or even labor force to be trained. This lack represents one of the biggest problems that the entire district, alongside the political parties, are facing and trying to solve by implementing different initiatives such as the creation of schools and professional institutes located on site. From December 2020 to September 2021, a short period, there was a decline of 4.3%, i.e. about 1,000 units less than the previous year.

The situation is becoming worst, if we think about the trade crisis worldwide caused by the war which in turn provokes a shortage of raw materials and the consequent incredible increase of prices. This situation happens in a scenario where many activities that took place in areas involved in the war, had to stop. Therefore, in addition to imports, exports are also suffering very much. We have to consider that 2021 we had registered a significant recovery – + 9.7% (in millions of euros compared to 2020) – but we are far from the pre- Covid numbers, whose comparison marks a total -20.2% of the exports of companies from the Marche region. It should be emphasized that in 2021 the tot. Export Italy Value (footwear + components) recorded a + 17.0% compared to 2020 and -1.5% on 2019. Fourth Italian region for footwear export turnover + components, after Veneto, Tuscany and Lombardy, the Marche region represents 9.8% of the total Italian exports in 2021 (in value) which was equal to 10.4% in 2020. These values are very relevant as a whole. Germany, France, the United States, Belgium, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom, Russia and China were the main export destination countries of the Marche region in 2021 (in order of importance). We assume that at the end of this year the scenario will be very different. We do not know when things will improve, 2023 is estimated to be the year in which we could return to a pseudo-normalcy, provided that the political crisis with Russia does not worsen.

The trade and the world economy system, i.e. the “supply chain”, which until a couple of years ago has always proved to be efficient and capable of responding to the needs of the global market, is now in great trouble. The current crisis is the result of a series of other internal crises which, combined with the great natural disasters that have hit our country in the last decade, worsen the general picture. Raw materials low supply, increased costs in general that affect production costs of finished products and the energy crisis have led to a slowdown or even to the interruption of production in many production sectors. Even in this case, for the active factories costs have however increased exponentially.

At the Ministry of Economic Development, crisis led last May to the drafting of a new Aid for Enterprises Decree, measures to ensure liquidity for companies affected by the Ukrainian crisis, to cope with the increase in the prices of materials and to ensure productivity and attraction of investments. The aid and energy decree contains a series of concessions in favor of companies with high gas consumption, such as those that produce soles. For the latter, the tax credit was raised from 20 to 25% and the subsidy provided for all other non-gas-intensive companies, but still characterized by a significant incidence of charges on these supplies, was also raised to the same level. In addition, the tax credit related to companies equipped with electricity meters of power equal to or greater than 16.5 kilowatts but not. energy-intensive, was also raised from 12% to 15%. Furthermore, a fund of approximately 200 million euro will provide non-repayable aid to companies with strong trade with the areas involved in the war (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). To encourage the attraction of foreign investments and the relocation of companies, in Italy and Europe, 5 million euros have been allocated per year and, to facilitate the execution of the never simple bureaucratic procedures, one-stop shops will be set up to accompany and support investors in all formalities and practices useful for the concrete realization of investments. Finally, in order to continue to promote the development of Industry 4.0, an increase in the tax credit for intangible capital goods 4.0 has been envisaged: specifically, the rate rises from 20 to 50% until 31 December 2022 or 30 June 2023 if an advance payment of at least 20% of the value of the goods has been made.

In the meantime, while the mentioned interventions will hopefully help our companies, the watchword is resilience. From a research by Deloitte Private, those that can be definitive “high resilience” in Italy are almost one in three companies (31%) because, as we know, safeguarding your organizations, people and corporate assets represents not only a great responsibility but the biggest challenge.

Source: MPASTYLE

https://mpastyle.it/en/il-distretto-marchigiano-un-esempio-di-resilienza/

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