Crisis, recovery and development opportunities. What future for South, Puglia And Salento? We talk about it with the deputy director of Svimez, Stefano Prezioso.
Today at Expojob he will hold a lectio magistralis based on the projections outlined by Svimez until 2025. Are the South and Puglia still places of escape?
«Nowadays we are also fleeing from the North, which, however, does not lose population just because it manages to attract them from the South and a little from abroad, the less qualified ones. However, our GDP forecasts say that by 2025 Puglia will be the second region in the South in terms of growth rate, behind Campania, because a production system has been consolidated which is more structured within the South”.
And how will this growth be reflected in the job market?
«The job market has already done very well between 2019-23 in Puglia, very well in the province of Lecce, because the framework of economic policies has changed. After 18 years of restrictive policies, between 2019 and 2023 we had expansive policies (citizen’s income, superbonus, refreshments) which, paradoxically, did not cause the public debt to explode as, instead, happened during the austerity periods (2008- 2011 and 2011-13). The novelty of the 2019-23 period is therefore that the South has not been left behind. Now the challenge is to keep it connected to the rest of Italy.”
With the cutting of incentives and income support policies, therefore, would the South risk going backwards?
«The risk is there, even if we don’t yet foresee it. We say that between 2023 and 2025 the South should remain close to the rest of Italy. Our forecasts were developed a month ago on the basis of some fiscal policy hypotheses which, however, were not then declared by the government. The Def (Economy and Finance Document) outlines the trend states, it does not say what the government wants to do.”
In your opinion, what should he do?
«Continue with the economic line of support for employment and income and, through the Pnrr, invest resources in the South in order to determine the change in supply through the modification of local production structures. In fact, only if you broaden the production base will the South run”.
And how can the Pnrr contribute to broadening the production base: infrastructure?
“Yes. But an industrial policy is also needed to attract investments from abroad and from the rest of Italy. Let’s think about Leonardo and his impact in Puglia: if there were 5 initiatives of this kind, they would make their weight felt.”
Meanwhile, however, in Salento, between 2019 and 2023, employment exploded: +16.5% (elaboration based on Istat data), thanks also to the extraordinary female component. How do you explain it? The growth of the fashion sector is undoubted, but can it alone motivate the boom?
«It also happened in Campania, but employment did not grow in the same way. I can’t tell you what happened. Perhaps there was a greater availability of nursery schools, capable of determining greater willingness to work on the part of women as this has not happened in other regions of the South.”
Is the need for immigrants also growing, which many, even in these parts, would like to reject?
«It is the other decisive component. From 2001 to 2021, Puglia lost 122,547 residents, due to a negative migratory balance of 60,239 units and a negative natural balance of 62,308 units. Lombardy attracted a million people in the same period.”
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Tags: Growth Puglia investments Leonardo model
