Business confindence on the rise in Italy

According to a recent Reuters news wire, Italy's Business confidence index has reached its highest level since September 2008.

"Economic research institute ISAE's seasonally adjusted business morale index rose to 77.1 from a revised 74.3 last month, keeping pace with cheery business sentiment data in the past week from European peers France, Germany and Belgium."

Good news? It is a sign that business in Italy, the Euro zone's third largest market, might have bottomed out. Orders are on the rise, but not enough yet for a full turnaround.

But then, if the economy has stopped falling, it might be a good time to think of entering into the market.

http://www.forexyard.com/en/reuters_inner.tpl?action=2009-10-28T102159Z_01_LS671867_RTRIDST_0_ITALY-BUSINESS-CONFIDENCE-UPDATE-1

Why Italy? Because of its glorious past and ability to reinvent itself

Italy is not a tax heaven nor a new frontier. Still there are many reasons to make business in the Country. A Large Customer Base. With a population of 58 million inhabitants, Italy is the European Union’s fourth largest country after Germany, France and the UK. It’s high-spending consumer base is part of the 450 million person strong EU economic system of countries sharing the same currency: the Euro. Italy is a natural target to expand in the EU market.

Brand Recognition.
”Made-in-Italy” is still a strong asset in many markets. Fashion, shoes and accessories, and food, are the first that come to mind but Italy is also famous worldwide for its rich ecosystem of small to mediums sized industrial businesses. Many of these companies – in fields ranging from machine tools to furniture, from biotechnology to leatherworking – have built a strong reputation at home and especially abroad. Today many Italian companies – many of them family founded and run – are looking for partners and investors to help them meet the challenges of globalization or expansion into new markets. Many are excellent friendly merger and acquisition targets.

Real Estate.
Despite the international crisis, real estate prices rarely fall in places like Rome, the center of Milan, Florence and Tuscany due to both the attractiveness of these locations and working of the Italian Real Estate Market. Many other places are of growing interest, such as Umbria, Abruzzo and many others.

Bargain hunting.
In 2007 the magazine Economist named Italy "the real sick man of Europe". This is only partly true. While many Italian business are suffering near zero growth, a strong, vibrant minority seeing a period of record sales and exports. Many others have their potential with the right investor or partner. The result is that opportunities exist for a wealth of undervalued Italian enterprises. A small middle Italian company may be weak alone but stronger and of greater value as part of an international group or in the portfolio of a private equity fund. For further information on doing business in Italian feel free leave a comment here or contact us directly.

Joshua Lawrence, Business Development
Forwarditalia@tiscali.it
+39 328 0553 470

Stefano Tresca, International Tax and Business Lawyer
Stefano.tresca@tlaw.eu
+39 06 4521 4718

If you dream of visiting Italy, why don't you dream of investing here?

International opinion polls, and my personal experience, indicate that Italy is the country that people the world over most want to visit.

So why not invest there too?

In terms of lifestyle, Italy has been getting good press for centuries. But even though it is in the G8 club of most industrialized nations, it's not the place investors think about looking into. Watch this space as I try turn that perception upsided down.

Bad press usually has a grain of truth. There is a garbage problem in Naples and surrounding cities. But that's like looking at Three Mile Island and applying that image to Pittsburg, or assuming that all of New Jersey is Newark (no offence to the people who are trying to turn Newark around.