The CNA Toscana survey “Tuscan Artisan Fashion and Commission Manufacturing amid continuity and transformation” reveals that 49.2% of SME entrepreneurs in the fashion and leather industry are foreign.

What are your thoughts regarding the difficulty in guaranteeing continuity to Italian entrepreneurship?

Italians are extraordinary manufacturers: Made in Italy esthetic taste and artisanship give life to products of quality and excellence. What is lacking is a modern entrepreneurial culture. Staying confined in an individualist and artisanal vision prevents them from teaming up and transforming themselves from artisan manufacturers into great entrepreneurs.

In the May meeting on the start of the Plan of Operations and Structural Variation, what interventions have been planned to support SMEs in the territory?

Since March, we have embarked on a path to renew government instruments until 2023; over 40 meetings have been planned. The main topic of the Plan of Operations is work, identified both as maintenance of commercial work and services in the industrial area and in the neighbourhoods, as well as further redevelopment of the production area, which has seen 150,000 m2 of salvaged industrial area and over 100 million construction sites. Together with the companies, over the years, we have also created a training system (Polimoda, MITA and Alta Scuola di Pelletteria Italiana), which aims to train the most needed profiles by companies. Not least, the Plan focuses on the structural modernization of Scandicci, with the extension of the tramway, the doubling of motorway exits and the opening of the Park & Ride parking lot.