Signed today the “Agreement for the Export”, well received by Italian farmers

“A timely and useful initiative also for the relaunch of Italian wine and food exports after the health emergency”: this is how Confagricoltura commented on the “Export Agreement” presented today by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, who was also positively received by other business organizations, such as Coldiretti, who stressed that has “signed with great satisfaction the Export Agreement, which enhances the driving role played by the wine and food sector with a great synergy of the country’s system”, and Cia-Agricoltori Italiani, who considered the Agreement fundamental “to relaunch Made in Italy on foreign markets. After the slowdown imposed by the Coronavirus emergency, there is a need for timely unitary actions and innovative commercial strategies that focus more and more on digital channels”.
An agreement, for all the actors of the agricultural sector and of the wine and food chain, fundamental for the restart, after the months of crisis caused by the pandemic, of 1.4 billion Euros, which aims to relaunch and protect the tricolor export in the world, once again put in difficulty by misinformation and unfair competition, which began at the same time as the diffusion of the Coronavirus in Italy, which led allied countries, as Coldiretti recalls, to request “virus free” certificates on goods. A claim which vanished, the Coldiretti specifies, as soon as the pandemic spread all over the planet, with the closure of the borders and the measures for containment which determined the abrupt halt to trade at a global level. The result is that 74% of wine and food companies that export has since then recorded a decrease in sales abroad due to a shower of cancellations from customers around the world: according to a Coldiretti/Ixè survey it emerges that the heaviest bill has been the wine and floriculture sector, but difficulties are also reported for fruit and vegetables, cheese, cold cuts and preserves.
Among the fundamental points of the “Agreement for the Export”, there is that of cooperation: for Cia-Agricoltori Italiani it is essential to work in a unified way, first of all to overcome the fragmentation of the Italian international promotion system, with the coordination of activities between central and territorial level (Regions, Chambers of Commerce, promotion bodies), so that there is a coordinated, univocal and integrated action at international level. For Confagricoltura, it is essential to include six agricultural experts in the diplomatic-consular network, who will be able to optimize the work of the Embassies in the removal of non-tariff barriers and in the promotion of excellence in the wine and wine and food chain. A request that Confagricoltura had long advocated, to fill a gap in Italy compared to the other Member States. But also the role of technology, which more than ever during the months of lockdown has proved to be an ally also of the agricultural and agri-food sector: the push towards the increasing use of digital technologies as a new way of meeting between buyers and companies is important, “but this requires - underlines the CIA - the overcoming of the digital that divides with the internal areas of the country, so that there is the availability of a real infrastructure also in rural areas, a crucial element of the competitiveness of farms at a global level”.
“The export agreement - points out the President of Coldiretti, Ettore Prandini - recognizes the driving role that the wine and food industry plays for the whole Made in Italy and promotes the necessary institutional synergies abroad also with the involvement of the Embassies. As far as trade exchanges are concerned, it is necessary to use all diplomatic energies to overcome the US duties and the Russian embargo that hit the wine and food Made in Italy hard at a difficult time for our exports”.