“Treviso-Belluno entrepreneurial system meets honourable Minister Alfano

Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce – Belluno
May, 2nd 2017

Greetings of the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce President
Mario Pozza

«Mister Minister,
Honourable Members of Parliament,
Eminent entrepreneurs,
Authorities
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Students,

It is my honour, Dear Minister, to have you as guest today, here in the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce, house of the enterprises. A significant place of Italian culture of making
business.
As the video has showed, several are the activities carried out by Chamber of Commerce for the local social-economic system.

For the competitive advantage of such system, much earlier than the Reform Law imposed it to us we have wanted to consolidate voluntarily the previous Chambers of Treviso and Belluno.

The united Chamber of Commerce represents a situation of 94.500 companies that together occupy almost 400.000 workers.
A considerable piece of the Venetian economy is then here represented.

Mister Minister,

I am pleased for your visit and the promptness in re-scheduling an appointment in this territory so fervid of entrepreneurial activity where every day, women and men live their own business risk in
the national and international markets.
For such enterprises community, your visit as Head of Farnesina is definitely significant.
It is well known and I am proud to represent an economic system with a strong inclination to export and internationalization.
Treviso, we are going to listen it in a couple of minutes, it is the seventh Italian Province for export value with 12 Milliards Euros. Other 4 Milliard Euros export are generated
by Belluno Province, in large part coming from the glasses supply chain and from a reality of small and medium enterprises that belong to traditional sectors.
This territory generates then the 28% of the regional export, with the amount of 58 Milliard Euros. This value exceeds the overall export of Finland or Portugal.
Treviso and Belluno export represents, in shorter, the “4A” emblem, symbol used since several years by Edison Foundation to describe the best of Made in Italy.

A as Agroalimentare (Agri-food), Abbigliamento-moda (Apparel-fashion), Arredo casa (Home furniture): supply chains with a huge presence in the territory and strongly
internationalized, with practices of real excellence

A as Automation-machinery-plastic: industrial machinery, Mister President, is our first export entry. In 2016 it has generated 2,5 Milliard Euros turnover adding up Treviso and
Belluno, half of it performed in extra EU markets

Mister Minister,

The attention you pay to us, it is the attention you pay to the excellences of whole Made in Italy in even more complex international scenarios.
In this sense, we were delighted to find out the growing role of Farnesina in supporting the Italy System promotion. Moreover, we sympathize with the inter-ministry coordination you are supporting
around the Steering Committee for Internationalization.
You are going to hear it from the enterprises’ testimonies: we always more need to have a Country System supporting the efforts of our enterprises abroad. Ministries, IC,
Embassies’ network, Chambers of Commerce abroad, Associations’ world, all must definitely reason together.
As I have already mentioned, actual scenarios requires this: Brexit, US duties risk, penalties from Russia, possible military escalations in Middle East and East Asia., all these are factors that
generate many worries in our companies that continuously operate in international markets.

MisterMinister,

the diplomatic-commercial war between European Union and Russia has already costed 4 Milliards to Italy, from 2014 to date. For Veneto Region the damage is minus 650 Million export towards
Russia.

Treviso Province pays with an export contraction to Russia of 120 Million, of which 50 Millions refer to furniture sector, as it has widely discussed during the last Salone del Mobile.
Talking about Salone del Mobile: on this stage we wanted to have the chairs of a Venetian company, Arper spa from Monastier: design masterpieces, as you can see, example of manufactory
excellence.
You keenly know, Mister Minister, the value of the Italian design. You have concretely showed it last March, by promoting the First Italian Design Day in 100 cities worldwide,
through the Embassies’ network.
Such initiative gives me the opportunity to suggest you another proposal: can we make possible that our entrepreneurs “adopt an Embassy”? Can we make Embassies and representation offices “nice and
well done” showrooms? Starting from furniture. In order to create continuity between promotion initiatives in the Countries and the fact that, when foreign operators come to Embassies, they see and
experience our Made in Italy, our design, our excellence capacity.
If this is a feasible idea, I will suggest it also to Assocamerestero General Council, in my role as new member and for the forthcoming cooperation between Italian Chambers of Commerce abroad and
Embassies, together involved.
Made in Italy brands and the Italian flags you see here exposed for the forthcoming Alpini National Assembly is another good combination that we present you here in Treviso. These are symbols that
put together history, tradition, entrepreneurship, that represent our values to be constantly re-called by institution, infecting the new generations.

Mister Minister,
We have talked about internationalization based on business exchange, but this territory is much more, because here global value chains flow and find relevant intersections, which base both on the
ability of our leading companies to go abroad, and on the ability of our territory to attract international players.
In these times of protectionism threats, this territory teaches that winning in the global competition is possible by playing all the available options: export, business alliances, investments
abroad and acquisitions made by foreign companies in the territory.
All these elements, together, they determine the international image of the territory and contribute to benefits generation: in employment and in the overall richness that also in difficult moments
has characterized the industrious Veneto Region.
Treviso benefits from the knowledge contribution of Venice Cà Foscari University, which is present, thanks to the forward-looking choices of a careful local political strategy that intended to
support our entrepreneurs involved in internationalization process in solving internal market crisis maintaining the job places.
Here in Treviso we have a Campus of about 1.500 students, and still from the name it is possible to perceive the strong exchange with the economic context: “Degree in Economy, foreign
Languages and Entrepreneurship for the International Exchanges”. There is also Padua University, one of the oldest in the world. Both universities were able to mix with the enterprises
´communities, and this is part of secret of the ability of a continuous renewal.
I would like to greet the students that are here, and I wish them to become the managers of our enterprises bringing them towards the most advanced innovation and competitiveness frontiers.