Turin 'the factory of Italy', Orsini on the manoeuvre: 'We need courage and look to growth'

Between 2019 and 2024, recalls Gay, China produced 6 million more vehicles and Europe 3.8 million less, Japan 1.2 million less, and the United States 70 thousand less. 'The day before yesterday, the Turin Chamber of Commerce together with our Anfia presented data on the automotive supply chain, which in 2025 in Piedmont lost more than 1 billion euro and 1,500 jobs,' recalls Gay, 'and 2026 we fear will go in the same direction.

On the one hand, the state of things, and on the other, the outlook. In an international context, President Gay analyses, that has changed profoundly. 'Global trade is growing less than world GDP. The economic system is more closed and distrustful,' adds the president of the Turin industrialists, and this means for an exporting region having to reckon with a 2.5% drop in exports in the first half of the year, certainly conditioned by the heavy drop in automotive volumes.

American tariffs alone, 'for which we estimate a loss for Italy of EUR 23 billion,' recalls Gay, will mean 445 million less in exports for Turin. The first response, Gay insists, must be to seek new markets, 'we must create new partnerships with India, Africa, the Caucasus countries, and make the most of the opportunities of the Mercosur agreement.

Turin is the 'factory of Italy that doesn't give up,' says Marco Gay. 'In ten years, companies in Turin with a turnover of over 5 million have grown by 37% and employees by 24%,' he analyses. 'Fixed assets - i.e. plants, robots, software - have grown by 57%: we are talking about billions of euros of new technology pulsating around the city,' he recalls.

Turin remains a land of industry. 'This sector is worth 510 billion euro, 23.4% of the national GDPx, twice as much as France. Here, in Turin, it is worth 26% of GDP,' Marco Gay emphasises. But there is a catch. 'We do not invest enough where it is needed, i.e. in our industrial intelligence. Investment in plant and machinery has dropped from 37% to 32%. Intangible investments, i.e. software, patents and research results, which are now the most important, are stuck at 7%.

As for the manoeuvre, Gay speaks clearly: "There is little for business," and criticises, for example, the lack of resources on tax credits for research and development. The main measure, he recalls, will be the restoration of the super depreciation for tangible assets, with an allocation of 4 billion euro for the three-year period that will be recovered from Pnrr funds. But the problem is twofold, Gay points out: on the one hand, funds allocated only to tangible assets at a time when digitalisation is becoming increasingly important; on the other, the fact that "it is unthinkable to make development and growth with these resources.

The direction for Turin, suggests Gay, is to give life to a new Turin mobility industry with cars, microcars, drones, and even soft mobility at its centre. And on the innovation front, he emphasises, 'it is product innovation and not just process efficiency that will allow us to be competitive'. So, alongside the mobility of the future and experimentation on autonomous driving, there must be robotics - Turin is the third largest city in Europe in terms of investment in robotics - and the opening up to the drone industry.

In this context, in general, Gay emphasises, 'we need more Europe and more economic freedom'. And we need, he adds, to put the issue of innovation and investment at the heart of development. A passage supported by the mayor of Turin Stefano Lo Russo, who recalls the city's vocation on the innovation front with its recognition as European Capital of Innovation and the heritage of knowledge in the hands of the Polytechnic and the University.