Funds ready to invest: 'But taxation should be lighter'

Professional Pension Funds say they are ready and willing to invest in the country's economy, but investments must be diversified and prudent. This is what the president of Adepp Alberto Oliveti said from the stage of the Barberini cinema in Rome, where the States General of the welfare of the liberal professions took place. Oliveti recalled that the pension funds have been privatised for more than thirty years by signing a pact that has been respected: "We have honoured the implicit contract and paid all benefits, including the new-welfare; the assets of the Funds are officially estimated at 125.2 billion euro and, in my opinion, have already reached 130 billion this year; we contribute to the country's economy by making investments and with taxes, which in 2023 totalled EUR 2.65 billion, of which EUR 2 billion from pensions paid out and EUR 650 million from taxation on investment returns, which we have long been calling for to be eliminated or at least reduced (the tax for the funds is the ordinary 26%, ndr)".

It was precisely on investments that the speeches by the foreign minister Antonio Tajani and the undersecretary for the economy Federico Freni in Rome focused. The topic was stimulated by the speech given on 26 May by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni atthe Confindustria Assembly. During her speech, the premier said: 'We must stimulateprivate capital, we intend to strengthen the mechanisms already introduced in the last Budget Law to increase investments by pension funds in the real economy, particularly for innovation, start up and infrastructure. It is clear that something is wrong if out of 260 billion collected from Italian workers only 40 billion ends up in the Italian real economy, so a solution to this problem must be found'.

On this statement Tajani, speaking as a party secretary and not as a minister, clarified: 'As far as I am concerned, we need to make a call to arms to the world of the professions and the funds, you have to be the protagonists of a new season, Italy's accounts must be put in order. Yesterday I was very happy with the premier's words that turned the spotlight on the world of the funds, it is not a favour done to you but a way to involve you. The funds are indispensable for the creation of big projects in our country, we must listen to your ideas and needs, the time is ripe for you to become protagonists'.

According to Federico Freni, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the big challenge today is structural investment with a high technological impact. 'We cannot ask for the involvement of the funds without the involvement of private investors,' says Freni, 'we cannot ask them to play alone. Any investment,' continues Freni, 'requires a differentiation of risk otherwise it is dangerous. One of the great merits of the investments made by the funds,' Freni concludes, 'has been the differentiation of the portfolio.

It must be said that professional pension funds invest 38.4% of their assets in the country system (45% counting cash and insurance policies), compared to 19.3% for pension funds (source: Covip).