Giuseppe Lesce (Federmacchine): "Italian companies must get back to work, we can't lose another day"

The appeal made by the Chairman of the Italian Federation of Capital Goods Manufacturers, which includes ACIMAC (ceramic machinery manufacturers’ association), to the Italian institutions and the employers’ federation Confindustria to allow companies to reopen from 13 April.

“As we have already written to the Chairman of Confindustria Vincenzo Boccia and the representatives of the Italian institutions, we must get back to work as soon as possible, by April 13 at the latest, if we want to avoid the irreversible collapse of our economic system.”

These were the words of Giuseppe Lesce, Chairman of Federmacchine, the Italian Federation of capital goods producer companies serving all industrial sectors, an industry made up of more than 5,100 companies across the country with a total turnover of 50 billion euros, a very high export share (close to 70%) and a workforce of 200,000 people.

“Given the limits of the state budget and the globally interconnected nature of the entire economy, it is unthinkable to keep the majority of production processes shut down any longer and imagine that they can simply be compensated financially,” warned Lesce. “We must not forget that many countries, particularly Germany, the biggest rival of the sectors I represent, are continuing their manufacturing activities. This will lead to an erosion of the market shares we built up with so much hard work over the years, resulting in a loss of orders and customers to businesses that instead continue to operate.”