Between March 2020 and March 2022, they grew by 54,000, which corresponds to +8.7 percent versus +2.3 percent for total Italian companies
The regional analysis sees Lombardy in the lead, home to 11,005 new companies in the last two years (+9.3%) for a total of 124,106
Foreign companies are going through the pandemic emergency unscathed, growing at +8.7 percent in two years of crisis (compared to 2.3 percent for the total average of Italian SMEs). A reality that is “increasingly consolidated,” in the words of Unioncamere President Andrea Prete, but studded with small, poorly structured companies that are an expression of “the capabilities of the individual and the opportunities of the market.” And thus in need of support to “strengthen and fully integrate into the Italian productive and social fabric.”
These are the findings of the latest Unioncamere-InfoCamere survey, conducted on data from the Chambers of Commerce’s Business Registry between March 31, 2020, and March 31, 2022. Businesses headed by people born outside the country’s borders number about 650,000, accounting for 10.7 percent of the total. They grew by 54 thousand in the considered interval, corresponding to +8.7 percent against +2.3 percent of the total number of enterprises. This increase was mainly driven by the construction sector, which, on the back of incentives to restore the building stock, jumped by +20,974 units. Also on the podium were trade (+9,149 companies) and personal services (+3,695). In relative terms, however, financial and insurance activities (+16.5 percent), those operating in construction (+15 percent), and technical, scientific, and professional activities (+12.7 percent) led the way.
The regional analysis sees Lombardy in the lead, home to 11,005 new businesses in the past two years (+9.3%) for a total of 124,106 activities at the end of March. Valle d’Aosta follows it with +14 percent, Trentino-Alto Adige with +12.7 percent, Piedmont with +11.4 percent, and Liguria with +10.8 percent. We are referring to individual micro-enterprises (as many as 486 thousand in total, accounting for 75 percent of the total number of foreign businesses in Italy) managed by people born in Romania (+4,674 units) and Albania (+4,581). There is no shortage of businesses led by Nigerians (+2,630) and Pakistanis (+2,397).
“Businesses run by people of foreign origin represent an increasingly consolidated reality in our country,” Prete notes. “We are talking about almost 650,000 businesses, which have resumed to record consistent growth rates even in such a difficult phase as the one we have gone through in the last two years. It is, however, a business that is usually born small, unstructured, out of the individual’s abilities and market opportunities,” he adds. The substantial flows of immigrants coming to Italy, he concludes, will continue to fuel this dynamic. But these are realities that “need help to strengthen and fully integrate into the Italian productive and social fabric.”
