Intesa Sanpaolo and the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Government of the Abruzzo SEZ, Professor Mauro Miccio, have signed an agreement to promote new production facilities and relaunch the local economy.
The signed protocol has among its objectives the support for sustainable investments of small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the regional SEZ, reshoring activities, individual and supply chain business development programs, training courses dedicated to the management of companies active in the area, initiatives for high economic and social impact that can attract investors.
The companies that invest in the areas of the regional SEZ will be able to benefit from tax incentives and a logistic system which, in the Abruzzo area, consists of the ports of Ortona and Vasto, the Abruzzo freight village, the Marsica freight handling center, the autoports of San Salvo and Roseto and from the international airport of Abruzzo.
Intesa Sanpaolo will also make available Incent Now, the digital platform resulting from the collaboration with Deloitte, which allows client companies to obtain information on measures and calls made public by national and European institutional bodies in the context of PNRR planning.
To accelerate the growth of the southern economy, the Bank has participated since 2017 in the enhancement of the SEZs in the South for which it has set up a ceiling of 1.5 billion euros for new investments. The Group has already promoted SEZs to international investors with specific missions abroad, such as those in Dubai and Beijing, and has activated a specialized desk that offers technical and financial consulting services. The PNRR also allocated 62.9 million euros to the Abruzzo SEZ.
The collaboration with the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Abruzzo SEZ is part of Motor Italia, the strategic program of the Bank which provides financing and initiatives to allow small and medium-sized enterprises both to overcome the difficult phase caused by the pandemic crisis, and to relaunch themselves through development projects, in line with the objectives of the NRP
“Our commitment derives from the firm belief that SEZs can and must represent an unmissable opportunity for the southern economy, and specifically in Abruzzo, orienting it towards internationalization, enlargement and the generation of new jobs. Thanks to this agreement, we renew our support for the Abruzzo maritime economy chain and beyond – explained Roberto Gabrielli, Lazio and Abruzzo Regional Director of Intesa Sanpaolo -. The geopolitical context has led to a shift in global maritime routes and the enhancement of the southern SEZ would make it possible to exploit the new energy and logistical centrality of the Mediterranean. For our part, we continue to work, as is our mission, with local stakeholders to encourage new investments, making new credit and operational support available to businesses “.
“This Agreement represents a useful tool for the effectiveness and coordination of the various actions promoted by the two signatory structures aimed at seizing the extraordinary opportunity offered by the SEZs for the economic and employment development of the Abruzzo region – declared Mauro Miccio, Extraordinary Commissioner of the Government of the SEZ Abruzzo -. With the Special Economic Zones we have a tool that makes available to companies, favoring the establishment of new business realities, important advantages starting from the fiscal ones and those linked to an extreme bureaucratic simplification, able to guarantee companies certain times for the implementation of their investments. To this – Miccio remarked – is added the strong push, in terms of investments and speeding up of the authorization process, for the construction of strategic infrastructures for the region, on its ports as well as in relation to the main roads and railways, capable of ensure adequate development of connections, in particular along the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic axis. The goal is to build a large logistics platform at the center of Mediterranean trade “.
