Today is the National Day of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs), an event organised by Piccola Industria Confindustria, the small-business branch of Italy’s main association representing manufacturing and service companies, and now in its 13th edition. PMI Day includes initiatives taking place simultaneously in all of Italy’s regions, with the numbers participating seeing a marked increase. They include more than 1000 companies and 600 middle and high schools, with about people 48,000 taking part.
Participation by Confindustria itself, and its various associations, is extremely high, with more than 97% of its regional associations taking part along with Acimit, Assosistema, Confindustria Moda, Federchimica and Federmeccanica.
This testifies to the great interest shown by entrepreneurs in helping young people engage with the world of business through meetings and guided tours of their companies. The aim is to open a dialogue to tell the story of businesses and their role as social actors throughout the country and thus give young people an opportunity to see manufacturing and production process up close and discover the occupations of the people working there and those required by the market.
The focus of the 2022 edition is “The Beauty of Italian Know-How”, a value and competitiveness factor that was born from the care applied to production processes and products. It expresses businesses’ capacity for innovation and creativity and is a true heritage of knowledge and traditions inspired by the history and culture of the communities and regions of which SMEs are an integral part.
Since 2015 the initiative has also been held abroad. This year, with the collaboration of Confindustria’s international representations in Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia, its goal is to introduce Italian firms operating in those countries to local school pupils and students. In the United State, PMI Day is staged jointly with the Miami Scientific Italian Community, which organises events in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy in Washington and its diplomatic-consular network; ABROAD TO, the Community of Italian Companies; the California Scientific Italian Community; ODLI, the Organization for the Development of Italian Studies; RetImpresa; and the Texas Scientific Italian Community.
