Milan, 14 May. (askanews) – Lidl Italia’s overall contribution to the country’s GDP in 2022 was equal to 7.2 billion, 0.4% of the gross domestic product, if we consider the complex of activated supply chains. To understand its weight, it is necessary to consider that it is 22% more than the added value of the steel sector and 3.2 times that of maritime transport. The “Socio-economic impact report of Lidl in Italy” created by The European House – Ambrosetti measures the value created by the discount for the Italian economy. “In the last 5 years, Lidl Italia has invested over 2.1 billion euros in the network in the development of the logistics network, in the development of the modernity of the sales points – Massimiliano Silvestri, president of Lidl Italia, told us – So our success is not the result of randomness but is based on a huge policy of investments to consolidate what is our brand in the Italian territory”. In 2022 Lidl became the seventh operator in the Italian large-scale retail trade market, from the 12th in 2013, with a share of almost 6%. Turnover reached 6.7 billion with an average annual growth of 9% in the last 10%. Numbers that have contributed to the creation of considerable added value in the last decade: “The consolidated added value of the ten years exceeds 8 billion euros and Lidl’s policy is not to distribute dividends to shareholders – highlighted Valerio De Molli , managing partner & CEO The European House Ambrosetti – I wanted to compare these 8 billion of added value generated with what the top 10 listed on the Italian stock exchange have distributed to shareholders in the last decade which is 110 billion what Lidl has generated in value in this country has remained in the country’s ecosystem.” All this has an impact on employment which has grown at an average rate of 8.8% per year, for a total of direct employees which in 2023 exceeded 22 thousand collaborators. Not only; Lidl, with its 6.2 billion in goods and services purchased in Italy, represents a driving force for the export of food products that supply the shelves of the brand’s stores abroad. “There are approximately 550 Lidl supplier partners with various brands of the brand. This subset of companies which have been partners for more than 5 years has, as a group, a multiplier of growth, turnover, added value, employees and investments that is a multiple higher, to be precise between two and a half and 5, than all their other competitors”. To this we must add the fiscal impact of over 4.2 billion euros, 2 times more than what is foreseen by the Pnrr for digital services and digital citizenship. And in the future of the discount brand there are further investments that will extend its presence in all regions, including Basilicata where the first two supermarkets will open by the end of the year: “Our desire – said Silvestri – is to open 50 stores per year over the next three years with an investment of around one and a half billion which will still allow us to take a further step forward in Lidl Italia’s rooting in the Italian territory”. The goal is to reach 2030 with 1,000 sales points across the country, alongside the development of a logistics structure which will see the opening of the Assemini hub in Sardinia in September.
