The leaders in foreign business ownership in Italy are Moroccans, with a registered business every 13 residents. The last ones are from Philippines.
Foreign firms are growing in Italy, with over 165 thousand immigrant entrepreneurs, as revealed by the report made by Ethnoland Foundation in partnership with the editors of the statistical Dossier Caritas / Migrantes.
Immigrant entrepreneurship is a very recent phenomenon in Italy. 85% of recorded reality were created from 2000 onwards. The interesting fact is that this boom has happened just in the same years companies owned by Italians have remained stable or even declined. On average one every 33 companies, registered in Italy, belongs to a foreign citizen.
The industry is the sector most favored by immigrants, with particular regard to the construction industry and textiles.
The numbers vary from north to south: it goes from 30 thousand companies in Lombardy to less than one thousand in smaller regions. Some surprises comes from the south, especially from Sardinia, Sicily and Calabria, where the immigrants have the same rate of entrepreneurship of the Italians.
The large Italian provinces are, of course, the main players: Milan and Rome, followed by Turin.
Immigration weight begins to be important for the economy. Foreigners working in Italy, in fact, now produce more than 10% of Italian Gross Domestic Product each year and pay 5 billion euros in contributions. Which means that they pay a good part of the pensions of the Italians.
by Silvia Cravotta
Photo by: JoséMiguel
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