'Boating, competitiveness is played on innovation and digitisation'

At a time when artificial intelligence (Ai) is becoming increasingly important in society, Italy 'lacks 4.5 million employees with advanced digital skills'. This was stressed by Corrado Panzeri, head Innotech hub & partner of Teha (The Ambrosetti house) group, during his speech at the Satec convention of Confindustria nautica, held in Puglia, in Borgo Egnazia.

The meeting was opened by a video-message by the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who reminded that the Executive "has given shape to the law on the enhancement of the sea resource, which has just been approved in Parliament, marking the beginning of a new season, in which the sea is finally considered one of the nation's strategic development assets. The boating industry is one of the fundamental components of this asset, a sector that the Government intends to support in simplification, accompany in innovation and internationalisation processes, and strengthen in skills training. Now,' Meloni concluded, 'the challenge ahead of us is to concretely implement the regulatory framework we have outlined, so that companies and territories can fully reap its benefits.

In his introductory speech, the president of Confindustria nautica, Piero Formenti, highlighted how the sector's industry today finds itself operating in a scenario in which industrial competition, international trade, technological innovation and economic policy are increasingly interconnected, and in which the ability to read and anticipate changes is a decisive factor for competitiveness.

And, on the subject of tariffs, he stressed that 'the US market is the main outlet for nautical exports and tariffs have certainly created a major problem. The biggest difficulty, however, was the uncertainty generated by the constant changes in the Trump administration's announcements, which made it impossible to understand what scenario we would be facing'. Once a more stable framework was defined, according to the chairman of Confindustria nautica, companies and stakeholders identified solutions to absorb the impact of the new trade measures: "The supply chain has found ways to offset the effects of tariffs, allowing US customers to continue to buy and appreciate products made in Italia".

Within this general framework, the importance of artificial intelligence, also for the nautical sector, obviously fits in. 'Ai,' said Panzeri, 'represents a historic opportunity for Italia: our models estimate a potential of EUR 336 billion more added value per year by 2040: the equivalent of the entire national manufacturing sector. In a country that will lose 3.7 million workers for demographic reasons, Ai is not an option, it is a structural necessity. But technology alone is not enough: today there is a shortage of 4.5 million employees with advanced digital skills. The real bottleneck is not the machine but the culture of innovation and people skills. In the meantime, American big tech will invest over $750 billion in 2026 alone: more than five times the European Union's entire investment in information & communication technology. Made in Italy has all the prerequisites to benefit from this industrial revolution, but the time to accelerate is now'.