Italian fashion, this is how we sold it to foreigners. Impoverishing the entire country.

ITALIAN FASHION SOLD TO FOREIGNERS

If you want to get an idea of ​​the decline and waste of the Made in Italy, take a look at this data on the "fashion system". Mediobanca calculated the entire turnover of the sector, in addition 66 billion euros a year, 4 percent of the national GDP, remembering that it withstood the shock of the Great Crisis well. But in the last ten years we have witnessed, with our hands raised in surrender, a massive transfer of ownership of these companiesAnd today we find ourselves with a vital piece of Made in Italy controlled 40 percent from foreigners.

I was saying: the sector is doing well, and this is evident from the fact that in the last year, turnover increased by 4,6 percent. Therefore, the decline was not due to a decline in demand, as demonstrated by the fact that Made in Italy was and remains at the forefront of major fashion shows around the world. Massive sales, first and foremost. in favor of the French, are the poisoned fruit of the short-sighted dwarfism of our businesses, denounced several times by the Bank of Italy. And of family-based management rather than family-based management.

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ITALIAN FASHION SOLD OFF

We have not yet got it into our heads that in the global world «small is no longer beautifulTo withstand global competition, you need size, corporate governance that clearly separates ownership from management, and investments in both the product and the distribution chain. These are all things our courageous former captains of Made in Italy don't want to do. If anything, they too prefer to retire, cash in on the astronomical sums from the sale of controlling stakes, with which they can live comfortably for several generations, and exit the scene. To become rentier, people who live off their income.

This is why the Italian fashion system hasn't managed to achieve anything similar to one of the major groups in the French fashion system—I'm thinking of L'Oreal, LVMH, Kering. Here, long-term, astute entrepreneurs have invested, acquiring brands, including Italian ones, and now they are the real masters of the marketThey became giants, we either left or stayed behind to work as seamstresses. To give you an idea: the French company LVMH alone is worth as much as the top 15 Italian fashion companies still in existence.

MADE IN ITALY SOLD ABROAD

Yesterday, we were good at innovating, creating, taking risks, and growing. Today, we're good at building relationships, finding foreign support, getting the deal right, and selling. As we did with the stellar sale of Italo to the Americans. Another paradigmatic case: in a strategic sector, such as rail transport, we first broke the public monopoly of Railways, with the money of the banks (Intesa San Paolo) and with the benevolence of the politicians who favored the opening of the market, and then, without a fight, we handed over the jewel to the Americans. You gentlemen, Italo's shareholders, have become richer than they were before; but the country has become impoverished. Like in fashion, where many designers live like nabobs, but the sale of their brands has made the whole system poorer of Made in Italy.

ALL THE WASTED OPPORTUNITIES FOR MADE IN ITALY

Ice cream, pizza, and coffee: they're all made in Italy, but the money is made by others.

Pachino tomatoes, we're killing them. And supermarkets are flooded with African varieties.

Tunisian, Spanish, and Greek olive oil: this is how we're killing Italian oil. 2016 will be a bad year.

Let's save Italian oranges and tomatoes: they're killing Made in Italy.