On Monday, September 21, in the ICE offices in New York, the Vice-President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani inaugurated the new SIMEST headquarters for North America. To introduce the ceremony was the Ambassador of Italy in the United States Marco Peronaci, who thanked the president of ICE Matteo Zoppas and the leadership of SIMEST, the president Vittorio de Pedys and the managing director Regina Corradini D’Arienzo, along with the representatives of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti e SACE present in the hall. Peronaci said: “With the impetus of the vice-president, the action of support of the Italian system, both for the export part and for the investment part, allows us to say, in difficult years, that the Italy system grows. The data of course should be read carefully, but they report a positive dynamic even in these six months, both for export and for investments. ” He defined the United States “our main market outside of Europe,” “fundamental especially for technology,” noting with satisfaction the presence of “businesses that also make high-value technological investments added, as well as a growing presence. ” He closed his speech saying that the synergy between ICE and SIMEST gives confidence to continue working on what he called “an essential market. ” Peronaci also anticipated that, in the following hours, Tajani would sign an agreement on critical raw materials.
In his speech, Tajani placed the opening of the office in a broader strategy of the Farnesina, built around a declared goal of 700 billion euros of export by the end of next year. He said he was “absolutely convinced that export could be more and more a fundamental tool for the growth of our GDP,” recalling that Italy is today the fourth world commercial power and the second European industrial power, with exports representing between 30 and 40 percent of gross domestic product: “We would be disproportionate if we did not focus on this extraordinary sector. ” He indicated as a priority “helping enterprises, never making them feel sun, even big ones, but especially small, medium and very small ones,” enhancing the work of ICE, SACE and SIMEST, which he defined “an integral part of the new strategy of the ministry” after the reform entered into force on January 1, this year. Tajani has claimed the creation, for the first time, of a General Direction of Growth dedicated to accompanying Italian companies in the world, and the opening, within it, of an operating room active 24 hours a day: “The goal is not to make any Italian entrepreneurs feel abroad alone,” he said, thanking the diplomats and officials of Italian offices abroad for the work already done. Finally, he anticipated that, in the next hour, he would sign an agreement on raw materials with the American Secretary of State, framing the question of critical raw materials as a central one not to lose competitiveness and to build an alternative market to that, he said, “dominated legitimately by China. ”
At the center of the ceremony also the cutting of the ribbon and the signing of a collaboration agreement between SIMEST and Choose New Jersey, the state agency for the attraction of investments, followed by a round table entitled “The Made in Italy overseas: compete and grow on the American market,” moderated by Stefania Spatti of Class CNBC, with the participation of Regina Corradini D’Arienzo, Matteo Zoppas, Renzo Fabrizio Cotarella.
To the question of why the opening arrived right now, the president SIMEST Vittorio de Pedys explained the choice to host the new office just inside the ICE headquarters: “We worked to get the opening of this office and wanted to do it at and within the offices of the Institute of Foreign Trade, with which we work in great synergy. ” On timing, he linked the opening to the launch this year of a specific measure for the United States “which is giving very interesting fruits,” adding that the opening of the office seemed “the logical and immediate step to be made immediately after launching the measure, having seen the first data, which are very positive. ” On the budget, defined “very premature, but very interesting,” de Pedys has framed the United States as “a market that is twenty times Italy” and “the second market of outlet after Germany” for Italian exports, “of enormous importance and also of great difficulty, considering the changes that the American administration continually introduces from the point of view of duties and other tariff barriers. ” It has specified that, since the launch of the measure, SIMEST has received “centinaia of questions” and has already launched “commitments and funding for tens and tens of millions,” on a total endowment of 500 million euros that the agency aims to commit entirely to Italian companies, especially SMEs, that approach the American market.
On the Italian sectors with more potential, de Pedys has cited both the consolidated and the less discounted excellencies: “On the American market there are positions of excellence in the classic Italian sectors that we can all imagine: food, wine, lifestyle, fashion, furniture. ” He added that Italian products and services are “at the very first places” even in less immediate sectors, such as “precision mechanics,” as well as in pharmaceutical and automotive, a success that has attributed to the “obsessive standards of precision and excellence” of Italian companies, valid both in the primary and in industry, services and technology.
To the question about what the office can offer in concrete to a small or medium enterprise that wants to face the American market, de Pedys has responded that the stated purpose is to “not only ensure various financing, both in facilitated finance and in risk capital, but also to assist materially on the place the establishment and the activities of the Italian companies,” in particular the small ones that, he said, represent “ 90% of our fund”: companies with “extraordinary entrepreneurial capacity and ” In order to measure, in a few years, the success of the initiative, de Pedys has indicated a precise objective: to fully refinance, within a couple of years, the measure from 500 million, drawing on a specific fund for the development of the export managed by SIMEST on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We will be happy to exhaust the funds to go to ask for further funds,” he said, “because this would mean that our mission was accomplished in allowing Italian companies abroad. ”
According to the data spread by SIMEST on the occasion of the opening, the measure dedicated to the US market, from 500 million euros, has already recorded about 400 applications of financing for a total value of 260 million euros. Over the last few years, more than 500 ordinary loans totalling EUR 214 million, 84 Export Credit operations for approximately € 560 million, and a participatory portfolio of SIMEST operations for Italian companies and joint ventures in the United States that has reached a total value of approximately one billion euros. In the note for the occasion, the managing director Regina Corradini D’Arienzo said: “Being in New York means strengthening our role alongside Italian companies, supporting them directly when they choose to invest, export and grow in a crucial market for development. ” He added that the offer of SIMEST combines “finance, expertise and assistance on the territory, with particular attention to SMEs, and a specific focus on the supply chains, which represent a fundamental component of our production fabric. ”
The office of New York is added to the network of operating offices opened by SIMEST from 2023 to Belgrade, Cairo, Ho Chi Minh City, San Paolo, Rabat, Dakar and Riyad, within the framework of a plan of presidio of the markets to greater potential for the Italian companies identified by the plan of Action for the exports of the Farnesina, developed in close connection with the diplomatic network and with the other actors of the Italian System, Deposit.
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