Grosseto: «Tourism, trade, services constitute a network that has been severely tested in recent years. Today it is up to us to relaunch this economic fabric of primary importance, and the need for a strong alliance between businesses and institutions to redesign not only the economy but also our lives as citizens within a city is evident” said the president provincial Giovanni Caso he opened itConfesercenti assembly in the presence of the national director Giuseppe Capanna.
Caso highlighted the need to counteract the decline of independent employment. Since 2004 it has fallen by 20%, while the number of employees has increased by 15.2%. «Doing business is increasingly complicated for small businesses and self-employed workers. It’s about supporting small entrepreneurs in a long and complex transition process in order to be able to withstand the challenges and remain on the market in a non-marginal way. A mechanism for continuous training of entrepreneurs must be created which, together with specific incentives for the introduction of new basic and strategic technologies, can systematically and permanently guarantee the implementation of these activities”.
The provincial director Andrea Biondi made an analysis of the economic and social situation of our province: «Our province is the one with the lowest per capita income in Tuscany, lower even than Livorno and the Italian average. We are a poor province. And consumption, consequently, is also low. Consumption is rising thanks to tourists, reaching the Tuscan average.”
The number of businesses is decreasing, even if in this case Grosseto does better than Livorno and even the Tuscan average. During 2023, 3,044 new companies were registered in the Chamber of Commerce register (Grosseto 1,412, Livorno 1,632) and 3,623 were canceled (Grosseto 1,617, Livorno 2,006); the balance was therefore negative by 579 units, a value much worse than the -276 of the previous year. Enrollments decreased by 2.1% on a yearly basis (a drop which in terms of value falls between the regional ones, -3.7% and the national ones, -0.2%), above all due to the Livorno result (-3.3%) rather than the Maremma one (-0.6%). In the two provinces that make up the territory of the Chamber of Commerce of the Maremma and the Tyrrhenian Sea, we note the now chronic and still heavy decline in trade (-2.1%) which is added to that of the primary sector (-2 .2%), manufacturing (-1.3%) and a more limited tourist activity (-0.4%). Only construction shows slight stability (+0.7%).
From all this comes the poverty of our province «if compared with the regional average of per capita income and consequently in local consumption, we discern a structural weakness mainly for trade in fixed locations, increasingly conditioned in revenues by tourist flows with consequent concentration of activities in coastal locations, and the risk of commercial desertification of the Maremma hinterland, a portion of the territory mainly affected by demographic decline, an aging population, and lower tourist flows, as well as the limited manufacturing presence. The greatest opportunities for growth in the added value of the territory come from the tourism sector, which, as stated previously, also influences the results of trade and service activities” adds Biondi.
And it is precisely for tourism that Biondi reserves a reflection: «Category associations will be increasingly important within tourism fields. Tourism is something collective. What is done together: bars, bathing establishments, restaurants… for this reason there is a need for a management group that coordinates and which cannot be just the public administration. We need a concrete synergy between the public and private sectors.”
Closing the meeting was the national director of Confesercenti Giuseppe Capanna who spoke about the role of the trade association. «Businesses are born, they die, they change and we must follow that path. Or there will be a disconnect between the association and entrepreneurs. We must provide answers to the questions that entrepreneurs raise. We must be equipped, structured and trained for this. This is how a sense of belonging is created. We must be like an exclusive club, from which attention is expected. The path to follow is that of services, of concrete answers, we must take on board the needs of businesses and be the solution to their problems, whatever they may be. That card must be full of content.”
