Basilicata needs a repositioning in the Mediterranean area to address, from the “Euro-Mediterranean South of the World” and in cooperation with African countries, historical and new development problems. To do this, “South Polo Magnetico”, in close relation with the Mattei Plan, is the “compass”, a useful tool for businesses, institutions and local communities to indicate the route to follow. It is in summary the thought of CEO of the Cestari Group and President of the ItalAfrica Centrale Chamber of Commerce, Alfredo Carmine Cestari, who concluded the work of the conference promoted in Rome in the Laudato Si room of the Palazzo Senatorio in Campidoglio by MEDinLUCANIA with at the center “The Lucania of Scotellaro, strong, European , Mediterranean”. Cestari shared the position of MEDinLUCANIA: Basilicata and the South are located in the south of Europe and Italy but are located in the center of the Mediterranean region.
MEDinLUCANIA has always thought that the real problem, still unresolved, was of a geopolitical nature and depended on the position one holds on the international stage. You have never believed in economic policies focused on small-medium areas; on the contrary, you always thought that the reference should be broader. In other words, talking about the development of a region but also of an area made up of several regions does not make much sense if the development process to which one wishes to refer is not framed in a broader context. Therefore, no longer just Basilicata or just the South but the Mediterranean area because at the basis of everything there is a geopolitical flaw to be corrected: the position. Numerous interventions and participants at the meeting in collaboration with the Lucani association in Rome, the Municipality of Rome and the Hon. In Converti, by the speakers Enza Spano, Giuseppe Melillo, Yuri Isoldi and the Hon. Marco Sarracino, the art critic Marco Tedesco and the artists Anna Faraone, Liliana Romanelli, Beatrice Summa and the moderator Mariangela Petruzzelli with the participation of the children of the non-profit social cooperative La Mimosa. In the conference with leaders of the Association and experts Cestari underlined that “the slogan that I have been proposing for some time “South Magnetic Pole” is a vision for our south to become a point of attraction for Italy, Europe and Africa . Southern Italy has a “great opportunity” to recover the role it has not been able to play so far in the Mediterranean and in economic cooperation with African countries.
Within an hour’s flight there are 1 billion 400 million inhabitants. It is a huge market that Southern Italy must look at. The single SEZ for the whole of the South – added the CEO of the Cestari Group – must be included in the strategy of the Mattei Plan, with the innovations recently introduced by the Meloni Government and the establishment of the control room to encourage investments from abroad and consequently new opportunities for southern SMEs”. In recalling that the PNRR has financed investments in SEZs with 630 million euros with the aim of promoting the economic development of Southern Italy, Cestari highlighted his full support for the ‘Mattei Plan’ because “it represents that virtuous model of collaboration and growth between the European Union and African nations which as the ItalAfrica Chamber we have been experimenting with good results for a few years and which in the SEZs finds further effective tools for economic cooperation and import-export intensification. If we were capable, if politics and private individuals were capable of seeing all this, there could be a turning point. Our sun, clean air, water, our typical products are things that only we have. We need to set up 10 companies with 100 employees that will start exporting and importing to and from Africa. It doesn’t take long to get started. We need to change our mentality starting from a few positive examples. We indicate a virtuous path to follow for cooperation between Basilicata, South and African countries”.
