Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo greets ‘The European House – Ambrosetti’

Newswire

Rome: Senior Italian diplomat Ambassador Stefano Pontecorvo this week greeted ‘The European House – Ambrosetti’ on holding the first edition of the “Towards the South” Forum.

“Another great initiative by @Ambrosetti_,” he tweeted to appreciate the Forum.

Earlier, the first edition of the “Towards the South” Forum was held on 13 and 14 May, organized by the Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion and The European House – Ambrosetti.

Among the guests Sergio Mattarella, Roberto Fico, Mario Draghi, institutions, business leaders and opinion makers from the countries of the area May 15, 2022The European House – Ambrosetti, the “White Paper” for the relaunch of Southern Italy presented in Sorrento

“The Wider Mediterranean is increasingly a strategic region on a global level, where the main trends and the most important challenges of our time will have to find synthesis.”

With the aim of framing Southern Italy in the reference region of the Mediterranean and assessing its performance in terms of attractiveness and competitiveness, The European House – Ambrosetti, on the initiative of the Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion, carried out a socio-economic analysis of the area to compare, in an innovative way, Southern Italy with the Mediterranean countries and three benchmark areas (average of the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the southern shore and the wider Mediterranean) along 4 domains of analysis: economic, social, energy and of innovation.

The analysis studied 22 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for 42 countries and 20 regions over a 10-year horizon for a total of over 13,600 information collected.

From this analysis a synthetic index was born for each domain of analysis. Southern Italy is positioned in the Top-10 for each of the 4 dimensions: sixth out of 20 countries in the economic domain with a score of 0.39, against an average of 0.34 for the Mediterranean; seventh out of 21 in the social domain with a score of 0.56, against an average of 0.51 for the Mediterranean ; third out of 22 countries in the energy domain with a score of 0.61, against an average of 0.49 for the Mediterranean and ninth out of 20 countries in the innovation domain with a score of 0.39, against an average of 0.38 for the Mediterranean.

Specifically, Southern Italy is positioned in the last 6 positions in only 1 KPI (investments on GDP), while in the first 6 positions in 7 KPI (birth rate of companies, renewable energy, gas and oil production, electricity import, change in energy consumption, high-tech exports, doctors per 1,000 inhabitants).

Overall, the ranking returns a significantly more in-depth and attractive image of Southern Italy than that generally known and widespread, precisely by virtue of the paradigm shift that considers this territory with reference to the Mediterranean area and the Enlarged Mediterranean, rather than comparing it to the ‘EU or consider the individual Regions that make it up in a national framework.

“In Sorrento we did not bring the usual” dream book “of the South, but a design vision already hinged and supported by colossal European investments, which in five years will radically change the Italian South” declared Mara Carfagna,Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion. “Perhaps not everyone has yet realized this, but the PNRR is the largest industrial policy tool activated in recent decades. It “puts to value” the potentials well described in the White Paper and starts the process to qualify Italy and its South in the direction we indicate: pole of transformation and distribution of agri-food; logistics and energy hub in the Mediterranean, a center of technological and scientific innovation, a place of attraction for tourism and new residents, a necessary bridge between Europe and the youngest and most promising continent, Africa.”

“In the current context of renewed centrality of the Mediterranean, our country can play a fundamental role in the reconstruction of its role as a geopolitical, economic and socio-cultural driving force in this macro-region – declared Valerio De Molli , Managing Partner & CEO , The European House – Ambrosetti.

“Considering the extended perimeter, the Wider Mediterranean has 45 countries that generate over 12 trillion Dollars of GDP and welcome 1.2 billion inhabitants, equal to 14.5% and 15.5% of the world total, respectively. It is in this framework that we believe that Southern Italy – thanks to its assets and its positioning – can play a leading role, offering solutions and proposals to Europe as a whole. “