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Over the past decades, Italian SMEs have repeatedly proven their extraordinary capacity to cope with change. LEnterprise and industry are now more than ever a factor in national security and not just a mere economic operator. It is necessary to . decisively at the centre of the debate. It is precisely through business that growth, prosperity and the future are generated. Le SMEs are the backbone of our production system, a fundamental pillar for the economic and social resilience of the country, we must support and strengthen themalso because they will be able to give back to the territories and communities in which they operate much more than they received. According to the latest ISTAT data, in fact, companies with fewer than 250 employees account for over 90% of Italian companies, those employed in SMEs account for over 76% of the total and ensure almost 65% of added value.
This is precisely why the Small Industry of Confindustria considered it essential to build a path of listening and sharing its base that found its synthesis in the SME Assembly "Listening. Courage. Enterprise'. taking place today in Bari. Here, a document of proposals for the strengthening of small and medium-sized enterprises is presented with the hope that it will become one of the cornerstones of the country's economic policy agenda. These proposals emerged from listening to the territories through aa approach roadmap that actively involved over a thousand entrepreneurs and in which the four macro-priority themes on which theAttention: Skills and human capital, Finance and growth, New enterprise between digital and physical, Sustainability and the green transition. On the basis of what emerged from this lengthy preparatory process, the needs and demands of SMEs to be submitted to external stakeholders in support of the growth of companies and the country were outlined.
The long pandemic crisis, followed by the emergency linked to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the shock energy and rising commodity prices have presented SMEs with challenges that were unthinkable just a few years ago. They must, therefore, supported so that they can successfully address the double digital and sustainable transition and can turn the changes taking place into opportunities for growth. Ihe strengthening of SMEs today requires a great capacity for technological and organisational innovation. More needs to be done. Structural reforms are needed to make them grow and investments are needed. We must focus on intangible investments and strengthen human capital endowment.
Attached is the full version of the Proposals Document.
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The proposals in a nutshell
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Skills and human capital
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- Intervening to reduce the mismatch between labour supply and demand which continues to be one of the main obstacles to growth and even survival of SMEs. Consolidating the link between companies and the world of training Making ITS and universities more inclusive towards SMEs. Ensuring that small and medium-sized enterprises are better represented in Foundations Higher Technical Institutes and in universities through research and PhD programmes dedicated to SMEs.
- Reducing the contribution component of the labour wedge in order to free up resources for their employees, concentrating the cut on employee incomes below 35,000 euro. A measure that is all the more necessary at a time when, on the one hand, the margins of companies - especially small and medium-sized ones - are drastically reduced due to soaring energy and raw material costs, and, on the other hand, purchasing power is eroded due to rising inflation.
- Enhance corporate welfare by creating a simple and incentivised system, reinforcing current tax measures aimed at rewarding SMEs that adopt employee benefit plans. SMEs have an extremely close link with the territory and 'naturally' play a social role with actions both towards their own internal community and that of the context in which they operate. Decisive support could come from the signing of agreements between municipalities and territorial welfare networks between SMEs, providing, for example, reductions in local taxes for networked companies that undertake to support municipal services to the community.
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Finance and growth
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- Strengthen public guarantees and encourage the extension of the duration of guaranteed loans. Public guarantees worked during the Covid emergency and now it is necessary to strengthen them and ensure continuity in their support. There are three guidelines on which to move: long lead times, greater access to credit by SMEs and lower costs. These instruments will also be instrumental in  support investments for the green and digital transition that SMEs must face in order to remain competitive. Clearly, funding will have to be closely linked to plant and process transition projects.
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- Strengthen the financial structure of SMEs and support their dimensional growth. To enable Italian SMEs to grow by activating large amounts of capital, it is necessary to work on the development of alternative channels. To this end, an integrated set of measures is needed, capable of reaching the different types and size classes of companies, strengthening or correcting existing measures, adding new ones with the aim of bringing smaller companies closer to alternative channels and market investors, and fostering the development of investors specialised in SMEs. So far, the instruments put in place have been difficult to reach companies with a turnover of less than 10 million. The issue of bonds by SMEs must be encouraged and investment funds must be made increasingly open to small and medium-sized enterprises..
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- Consolidate the role of SMEs in production chains to make them partners of the supply chain leaders. In order to support the relaunch and growth plans of SMEs belonging to production chains, also supporting their transition from mere suppliers to partners of the supply chain leaders, it is necessary to encourage the development of financing solutions that enhance the value of belonging to the chain itself, providing access to financial resources quickly and with more advantageous terms and conditions usually aimed at large companies, also thanks to the improvement of the rating of SMEs.mi members of the supply chain linked to the value of the head of the chain.
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New enterprise between digital and physical
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- Supporting the digital transformation of companies with a medium-term incentive system. Potain the skills present in the company by making the Training 4.0 tax credit stable over time. In particular, with regard to the tax credit for 4.0 investments, it would be useful to examine the possibility of revising the rates and timeframe of its application, with particular attention to smaller companies; with regard to the R&D tax credit, the idea of equating Pmi Innovative start-ups to Innovative start-ups, thus allowing beneficiary companies to have an increased facilitation intensity when commissioning R&D from Pmi Innovative. Mechanisms for a quicker utilisation of the incentive for SMEs are also to be evaluated.
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- Facilitate the transition from 4.0 to data-driven companies by providing solutions to reward efficiency gains and data capitalisation. Rewarding solutions could be envisaged for the capitalisation of big data by enhancing, especially in the bank-firm relationship, the Pmi demonstrating the use of data as a competitive force and business model evolution.
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- Supporting the action and role of Confindustria's Digital Innovation Hubs (DIH) as a strategic project. Through DIHs, an innovative and concrete way has been developed to support companies, especially smaller ones, by stimulating their demand for innovation and accompanying them on the path to digital transformation. This is why DIHs that concretely demonstrate that they are able to be a 'lever' for business innovation need to be valorised at the national level. They must also promote DIH more on the territory to bring as many small enterprises as possible together, also through greater involvement of Piccola Industria Confindustria.
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Sustainability and the green transition
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- Valorising domestic raw materials and secondary raw materials by simplifying and speeding up authorisation processes. Simplify regulations and fulfilments, reduce the management costs generated by fulfilments and so-called 'micro-taxes', with negligible revenue for the Treasury, which risk curbing the aspiration of companies to become energy independent, and avoid the introduction of unnecessary or excessively burdensome fulfilments for companies.
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- Promoting and fostering green public procurementas an important lever of development and transformation also for the PA and public assets, with a balanced approach that enhances the efforts of companies in the direction of sustainability.
- Promoting the green transition facilitating the installation of energy plants from renewable sources, providing subsidised credit lines and mechanisms to incentivise energy communities involving SMEs and facilitate the use of quality certifications, in particular those related to sustainability and energy transition by providing facilities, if possible automatic ones, that reduce their costs.
You can download the entire document here https://www.confindustria.it/assise-pi-2022