There are 15,631 foreign-controlled companies active in Italy, they employ 1.5 million people, with a turnover of almost 548 billion and an added value of 122 billion.
This is what emerges from the third report of the Foreign Companies Observatory of Confindustria and Luiss, presented on the occasion of the first annual meeting of the Foreign Investors Advisory Board (Abie) of Confindustria.
These companies, we read, "represent only 0.4% of the total of Italian companies, employ 8.8% of workers, realize 19% of turnover, 16.5% of added value, 26.8% % of spending on research and development, 32.3% of exports and 50.3% of imports of goods".
The Observatory indicates that in 2022, compared to the previous year, foreign-controlled companies in Italy recorded a 21% growth in exports, "which corresponds to the highest increase in relation to all other types of companies operating in the country".
The analysis also shows that foreign companies in Italy "show a lower propensity to divest between 2019 and 2022 compared to what happens in other global markets, preferring to stay in the country with a presence mostly downstream of international supply chains".
Furthermore, "some projections - explains the Observatory - indicate that, despite the fact that our country has been significantly affected by the pandemic, there is no intention to dismiss the affiliates in Italy by the head quarters".
The share of investments in research and development made by foreign companies out of the national total is still increasing, reaching the level of 26.5%, with a very high incidence on added value and higher than that of other types of companies.
"The digital profile of foreign companies is very advanced and an evident specificity is the high use of smart working, accelerated by the pandemic, with user companies exceeding 60%, a much higher value than that of other types of companies, also with reference only to large companies", notes the study by Confindustria and Luiss, which also underlines how foreign companies confirm "a high propensity to train their personnel, which involved 9 companies out of 10, compared to an Italian average of 7 out of 10. The share of women participating in training is the highest among all types of businesses active in Italy".
As for the structural characteristics, explains the report, "the average size of foreign-controlled companies is considerably high and, among exporting companies, it is the highest compared to all other types of companies. In almost a third of the productive sectors their weight in terms of added value is over 25%.The parents of foreign companies active in Italy reside in over 100 countries; those resident in the EU control over 50% of foreign companies in Italy, with similar shares in terms of employees and turnover ".
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