requested support until at least 2025

The economic and rural development commission of the Tuscany regional council has started a discussion with the parties involved in the crisis in the tanning sector of Santa Croce sull’Arno, Ponte a Egola-San Miniato and Valdarno Pisano.

The request for attention collected by the second commission is to find as soon as possible the best tools to deal with the crisis at a regional and national level. For this reason, we will work to bring to the attention of the regional council a policy document that contains the parties’ requests. Above all, the creation of a table that deals with the crisis not only of the tanning sector, but of the entire fashion supply chain in Tuscany.

Among the measures proposed, for a sector which in 2023 could record a drop in turnover of at least 20%, business combinations, derogating interventions on the redundancy fund, the renegotiation of existing loans, easier access to credit and the creation of energy communities. A bridge intervention to defend production and employment in view of a possible recovery expected during 2025.

“We are talking about a sector that is suffering from the effects of the crisis that has hit the fashion supply chain. The data that the companies have reported are worrying: there is talk of a reduction in turnover from 20 to 50% on the part of the companies. Furthermore, there is an exponential increase in layoffs and employment is also affected. We cannot ignore the cry of pain from the tanning district. In fact, we are talking about a sector made up of around 500 companies – including tanneries, contractors and related industries – which employ over 5,000 people and which records a turnover of 2.5 billion euros. The current crisis, we have been told, risks becoming structural, so much so that in twenty years production volumes have halved. Furthermore, the skin and leather district is changing its physiognomy, by virtue of the acquisition of the largest companies by large luxury brands or foreign investment funds”, declares Andrea Pieroni, regional councilor of the Democratic Party, in a note .