Le Marche: a special case
Senior government officials and representatives of the footwear industry in the Italian region of Le Marche took part in a discussion event on the first day of the Micam exhibition in Milan.
Hastily arranged following the start of the war in Ukraine, the industry and its supporters in Le Marche wanted to present a series of arguments for treating the region as a special case.
The speakers made it clear they regarded the human suffering taking place in Ukraine as the most important aspect of the war. From a business point of view, though, they said Le Marche’s shoe manufacturers would be harder hit than their counterparts in other regions of Italy.
The president of national trade promotion organisation ICE, Carlo Ferro, told the audience that, for Italy’s wider fashion industry, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine represented 2.7% of overall export business. For footwear exports, he said the share of the countries involved in the war was 3%. For the footwear industry in Le Marche, however, he said the figure was between 9% and 10% of all exports.
Italy’s junior minister for economic development, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, took part in the discussion. He suggested that something the national government might be able to put in place for concerned companies was an extension of a moratorium on paying back loans they received during the covid-19 pandemic.
One senior representative of Le Marche’s shoe industry, Annarita Pilotti, a former president of national industry body Assocalzaturifici, said this measure should come into place right away. “We are already paying back some of the loans we received,” she said. “With interest.”
