Between 2012 and 2023, more than one in five shops in Italy closed and were not replaced, translating into around 111,000 retail outlets that 'disappeared', Confcommercio said on Thursday.
Over the same period, 24,000 itinerant trade activities also ceased, according to the study 'Business Demography in ItalianCities' conducted by the Confcommercio Studies Office and the Guglielmo Tagliacarne Studies Centre.
Conversely accommodation and catering activities have increased by 9,800 units.
The study reports an "increasingly worrying" commercial desertification of Italian cities, with the reduction inactivities being more accentuated in historical centers than in the suburbs.
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