Presented during the “Twenty-second Economic Day – Siena 2030”, organized by the Chamber of Commerce, the University of Siena and the Monte Paschi di Siena Foundation, the main social, demographic and economic indicators of our province.
The initiative was a precious opportunity for discussion and analysis on the development of the territory through the contributions of the president and general secretary of the Arezzo-Siena Chamber of Commerce Massimo Guasconi and Marco Randellini, the president and general director of the Monte dei Foundation Paschi di Siena Carlo Rossi and Marco Forte, the vice-rector of the University of Siena Donata Medaglini and professor Francesca Gagliardi of the Department of Political Economy and Statistics of the University of Siena.
Also speaking at the Economy Day was Andrea Favaretto, director of the Sintesi Study Center in Mestre, who presented the latest report from the “Tourism Observatory of the Province of Siena”, an important tool for analyzing the dynamics and trends of the Siena tourism chain, born from a project by Confcommercio Siena, Confesercenti Siena and the Arezzo-Siena Chamber of Commerce and with the financial support of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation. The conclusions of the work of the Siena Economy Day were entrusted to the councilor for the economy and productive activities of Tuscany, Leonardo Marras.
“The MPS Foundation presents itself as a “place of connection” and promoter of social relations and institutional and territorial cohesion. – commented Carlo Rossi, president of the MPS Foundation -. With this aim, our organization is a proactive partner, with a strong propensity to innovate on interventions that generate lasting benefits for the territory, serving the community. The consolidation of the relationship with the Chamber of Commerce and the University of Siena, as well as with the other relevant institutions, allows us to increasingly structure a territorial study centre, where we can experiment with specific insights and predictive models of interest also for the programmatic and planning activity of the Foundation .”
During the Economic Day, the vice-rector of the University of Siena, Donata Medaglini, adds: “In this situation, the university’s commitment is to be increasingly attractive, offering a broad training offer that has high employability rates. As already demonstrated by recent Almalaurea surveys which indicate an employment rate one year after graduation of over 77 percent, a higher value than the national average. I would like to underline the close collaboration of the University, which contributes to this survey with the creation of a dashboard of indicators, the monitoring of which is essential for planning effective actions aimed at sustainable development of the territory”.
“Despite the geopolitical context burdened by uncertainties and instability, the world economy closed 2023 with greater growth than expected, demonstrating that it has been extremely resilient to the shocks of recent years, from the pandemic to inflation to recent conflicts – highlights Massimo Guasconi, president of the Arezzo-Siena Chamber of Commerce -. This is a result that has a positive impact on the prospects for 2024, which so far has seen the downward trend in inflation continue. Even real data, such as those relating to exports, seem to confirm, for now, a positive trend for the Sienese economy.
During the first quarter of 2024 – continues Massimo Guasconi in his speech at the Economy Day in Siena – the exports of our province stood at 1 billion and 399 million euros with a growth compared to the same quarter of 2023 equal to + 20.7%. Pharmaceutical products in the initial period of the year recorded a +27.5% with a value of approximately 703 million euros. Even the camper sector, the second sector of specialization of Sienese exports, shows a marked growth compared to the previous year with a +27.9% and a value of 210 million euros.
For the beverage sector – in which wine certainly represents the dominant item – the first quarter closes with 121 million euros, an increase of 12.9% on 2023. Over the last ten years, Sienese exports in current values have recorded an increase decidedly higher than both Tuscany and Italy, almost quintupling its value driven in particular by the pharmaceutical sector whose growth has been absolutely exceptional (in the space of two years the value of the sector’s exports has almost tripled). The 2024 data also confirm this increased propensity for internationalization as can also be seen from the achievement of third place (after Florence and Arezzo) in the export ranking of the Tuscan provinces, compared to 2023 which placed us in fifth place, preceded by Livorno and Lucca. ”
“Economy Day is an important moment of discussion and reflection with local institutions – commented Marco Forte, general director of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Foundation – on specific indicators of the economic and social context of the province, basic elements on which to start concrete reasoning. The identification of the areas of intervention, where needs and priorities emerge most significantly, is functional for the MPS Foundation, in order to effectively plan the economic resources to support the territory.”
“Even if our production systems have demonstrated an extraordinary ability to adapt to the continuous tensions and difficulties that have affected the international political and economic framework over the course of these years – underlines Marco Randellini, general secretary of the organization – there still remain significant risks which could derive, for example, from the worsening of ongoing conflicts or from the growing commercial tensions that are affecting world trade.
Our estimates, developed on the “Prometeia – local economic scenarios” data, reveal positive growth for the Sienese economy at the moment. The overall added value of the province of Siena is in fact estimated for 2023 at around 8.6 billion euros, with an increase compared to 2022 of 0.8% in real terms. The sectors that drove this growth were primarily construction (+7.5%), which still benefit greatly from the bonuses, and services (+1.7%), in particular tourism. Agriculture, however, is in decline (-8.4%) due to the consequences of a difficult year for the main productions of the area.
Finally – concludes Randellini during the Siena Economy Day – the industry is essentially at 2022 levels (-0.3%). Estimates for 2024 assume a slight slowdown in growth (+0.6%) as a result of a sharp slowdown in the construction sector (-6%) due to the disappearance of the super bonus, while services will continue to grow (+1.3 %).The forecasts for 2024 are also positive for employment, both in terms of employed persons and work units (AWU), albeit with a slowdown compared to those of 2023 resulting from a series of unknowns that could modify the evolution over the year. In this sense, the growth that occurred in 2023 in the number of CIG hours authorized in the province of Siena could have an impact: overall they were just over 1.1 million, 20% more than those recorded in 2022, concentrated above all in manufacturing (915 thousand hours, +44.3%) and construction (122 thousand hours, +29.3%). The indicators of the economic well-being of families also performed well in 2024 with the forecasts for disposable income and final consumption expenditure of families both positive. Even in this case, however, a slowdown is expected for the rest of the year, albeit less marked than the employment indicators.”
“The SIENA2030 project continues, we can now consider it a permanent observatory on our territory – highlights Francesca Gagliardi of the University of Siena – This year the site will undergo an important restyling, also introducing AI, which will allow users to dialogue with the data by asking questions. Among the many data collected, today we focused on the challenges posed to the area 2 years ago, to see where we are. The data is starting to highlight a positive change towards the digital transformation of businesses and towards investments in renewable energy. We are still far behind on waste. The demographic imbalance continues to be very high. We have also presented some indicators that allow us to focus on the two extreme categories involved in this imbalance: elderly people on the one hand and children and young people on the other.”
Siena Economy Day – summary of the Report on Siena tourism presented by Andrea Favaretto, director of the Sintesi Study Center
- For 2024, the continuation of the growth in tourist demand is expected for Italy which, with 447 million presences (of which 214 million domestic and 232.9 million foreign), would lead to an increase of +3.6% compared to to 2023. Furthermore, in 2024 Italy will rank ninth in the ranking of global tourist destinations.
- In 2023 in the province of Siena we had 2,308,139 arrivals with a growth of + 11.3% compared to 2022. Arrivals in hotel facilities were 1 million and 125 thousand and 1 million and 129 thousand in non-hotel facilities. Italian arrivals were 988,452, down by -0.8% compared to 2022, while foreign arrivals were 1 million and 319 thousand with an increase of +22.6%.
- Italian attendance was 2 million 139 thousand with a contraction of -1.4% and foreign attendance was 3,952 thousand, growing by +14.4%.
- 18.6% of foreign tourist presences are represented by Americans, followed by Germans (14.9%), the English (7.0%) and the French (6.8%). The best growth performance was that of Australian tourists whose presences grew by +151.3%.
- As already highlighted several times, the Sienese accommodation system presents a particularly fragmented and fragmented offer. Out of a total of 2,918 structures (equal to 17% regionally), 14% are hotels and 86% are non-hotel. In terms of bed space, this is an offer that offers 66,656 beds (equal to 12% regionally) of which 40.5% in hotel facilities and the remaining 59.5% in non-hotel facilities.
- There are 15,584 employees in the tourism sector in the province of Siena, 16.2 of the total employed in Siena’s business locations.
