“Our position is clear: the moment is difficult for companies in the fashion and accessories sector and we need to work together to find support solutions that see the Government and employers’ associations working together”. She declared it Annarita Pilottipresident of Confindustria Fashionon the occasion of the meetings organized by the Fashion Table organized by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy as a moment of discussion on the hottest issues concerning the sector.
Confindustria Moda represents today, following the release of Smi (Italian Fashion System) e Federorafi and then the eyewear of Anfaothe leather supply chain with Assocalzaturifici, Leather workers, Aip (Italian Fur Association) e Unique (Italian tanneries). The sector currently has 11,500 companies, 150 thousand workers and an annual turnover of 33 billion euros and is experiencing a complex situation, between the decline in production volumes and the consequent massive use of redundancy payments. Regarding the latter, the Italian federation reports, the data coming from the relevant production districts speak of a surge in requests for redundancy payments: +194% in February 2024 year on year. As a backdrop, the geopolitical crisis which, on multiple fronts, is compromising the balance of the fashion-accessories system.
The crisis in the world of leather goods had already emerged in recent months. On the other hand, the leather SME sector is closely linked to the luxury fashion houses for which they produce as subcontractors. Hence, the slowdown in the high-end segment would have had a decisive impact especially on this supply chain. The Monitors of the districts Of Understanding St. Paul had highlighted the problem: in the first nine months of 2023 leather suffered a slowdown in exports of 10.7%, therefore ‘losing’ 552 million euros compared to the period January-September 2022 for a total value of 4, 6 billion euros. And in recent months the local press has also underlined the critical situation: in February an article appeared in Corriere Fiorentino explaining how the Florentine leather goods district was literally frozen, with over 250 companies producing for luxury and accessible luxury brands stopped and around 4 thousand workers would be on redundancy pay. In light of this and as a response to the concrete difficulty, Confindustria Florence and some trade unions had presented a System pact to “minimize impacts on the supply chain”.
At the same time, the situation in which the textile-clothing sector finds itself appears less dramatic: according to the estimates of theSmi Economic and Statistical Studies Officethe aggregate data highlights an increase of 73.66%, which demonstrates how the issue of layoffs is more pressing for the world of leather goods.
In this scenario, Confindustria Moda’s appeal is aimed at government institutions, to work in synergy with an industry that represents “an important voice of Made in Italy” and which today finds itself “managing financial burdens that have become unsustainable”.
Specifically, the trade association asks for the repayment times of loans guaranteed by to be extended Sace And Simest for companies in the sector. These loans were used to deal with the emergencies that have occurred in recent years, from Covid to inflation to the market contractions following the Russia-Ukraine war and finally to the recent slowdown of the entire fashion sector. “But the emergency is not over”, underlines Confindustria Moda, which is asking for the reimbursement horizon to increase from six to ten years.
Similarly, the body also requests that the Government promotes the opening of a working table with the banking system aimed at granting an extraordinary suspension on current account lines of credit, financing for credit advances and loan instalments, and financing in general for companies that request it.
Furthermore, the controversial application of tax credits for research and development 2015-2019 is requested to be resolved. In fact, the note reads, “companies cannot be abandoned in the depths of this regulatory vulnerability and faced with the dilemma of initiating the spontaneous repayment procedure or facing investigations with an imponderable fiscal and even criminal outcome”.
