On 4th May 2020, 486 companies took part in the webinar “Mercati in Diretta, focus Germania”, the 8th event of the cycle organised by MAECI and ICE Agency to bring Italian companies closer to priority markets for our country.
The event, inaugurated by Undersecretary Manlio di Stefano, put Italian companies in direct contact with ICE Agency and the Italian Embassy in Berlin, illustrating the opportunities for our companies to have a revival in the German market after the Coronavirus emergency.
Germany is the first commercial partner for Italy, with more than 127 billion Euros in trade. For our country, the German market alone is worth 60 billion exports, 12% of total exports. Germany and Italy are characterized by strategic complementarity in all sectors. Thus, selling in Germany means first and foremost participating in global supply chains and in logistics platforms that connect Europe to the world. Unfortunately, COVID-19 crisis has been harsher in the regions with the highest industrial density and which account for 70% of our manufacturing trade.
The Italian Ambassador in Berlin, Luigi Mattiolo, has described the impact of COVID-19 on German economy and illustrated Germany economic response, the largest in Europe (1,273 billion, or 38% of GDP). To enable our companies to fully re-enter the German market, the Ambassador has added that “adequate financial instruments are needed, such as those provided by SACE and CDP, as well as the special programmes of KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, the German Bank for deposits and loans)” and “extraordinary promotional interventions, to adapt our companies’ export strategy to the new needs of the highly digitalised German market”.
During the meeting, the measures put in place by ICE to deal with the emergency and the new service catalogue of the Agency, which – among other things – protects Italian companies in a sector that has been particularly affected by the crisis in Germany, such as the trade fair sector, were illustrated.
