Anti-crisis measures for fashion: more shock absorbers and moratorium on loans

More flexible social shock absorbers, a moratorium on loans taken out during the Covid period, and a balance and write-off measure on the way for companies that used R&S tax credits between 2015 and 2019. These are the main findings of the Fashion Table that yesterday at Mimit brought together the key players of Made in Italy, a sector that in 2023 reached 103 billion in revenues with over 86 billion in exports.

"We have committed ourselves to ensuring, together with the ABI, the rescheduling of bank loans and to guaranteeing that companies in the sector will make full use of the resources for social shock absorbers," Minister Urso explained on the sidelines of the meeting. He added: "This morning I spoke with Minister Giorgetti regarding R&S credits, and we believe that in the next few months, and in any case by 30 October, we will insert and implement a regulation that will allow the cancellation and amnesty of this condition, which has put many companies in the sector in difficulty.

The associations present (including Smi, Camera nazionale della moda italiana, Altagamma, Confindustria Moda and Federmoda), together with the trade unions, have put precise requests on the table in order to react to a moment that is marked by a strong crisis: according to the Smi economic survey, the revenues of the textile-fashion industry in the first 9 months of the year will drop by 6.2% compared to the same period in 2023. In the first months of 2024, the use of redundancy funds by fashion companies was four times higher than in the same period a year earlier and, again according to Smi, in the third quarter of the year 33% of companies applied for redundancy funds. The situation is extremely serious," commented Sergio Tamborini, president of Smi; "the government's declarations of intent, both in the short and medium term, are correct, but then we need to assess their practical applications: for example, in some areas such as Tuscany, Campania, and the province of Taranto, SMEs with fewer than 15 employees have exhausted the shock absorbers provided by the special funds. On the moratorium, "we will see the contents of the ABI directive of 26 July, to understand ways and timescales," he says, while on R&S credits, the Smi chairman hopes "that in the directive we are awaiting there will be a trace of the authentic interpretation of the rule".

Tamborini also speaks of the need for 'a medium to long-term business plan and reflection on consumption models, to understand whether the industry's organisational model responds to current needs or whether our 'jewel' is being depleted because conditions are changing'. Among the issues to be tackled in a changing context is that of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a subject on which companies have been waiting for over a year and a half for a ministerial decree regulating the activities of the consortia created after legislative decree 116/2020: "It has been spoken of generically, with reference to caporalato," said Tamborini.

According to Carlo Capasa, president of the Camera nazionale della moda italiana and vice president of Altagamma, a long-term view is also necessary: 'The crisis is there and no time should be wasted, but this situation must also be tackled by thinking about the future as a way of strengthening the industry: we have proposed a pact on work and the government has told us that it is working on an industrial plan for the sector, with the promise to contact the associations by September'. The president of Cnmi defined this fifth moment of confrontation with Mimit as 'constructive: the minister said he was already at work on three of the issues we raised: redundancy funds, moratorium on loans and R&S credits, but also on the applications of the Ecodesign regulation, where companies must be at the forefront'.