Sitting at the table in a meeting room decorated with paintings representing partridges and other birds cut down in mid-flight by invisible guns, Franco Gussalli Beretta readily admits: worry hangs over the industrious province of Brescia, in Lombardy, where his dynasty has reigned for fifteen generations. President of the arms group that bears his name, he is also at the head of the powerful local branch of Confindustria, the Italian employers' organization.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, globalization and competition from countries with low labor costs eradicated our Brescian textile industry. Then the kitchenware sector suffered enormously. Low value-added industries have disappeared, other companies have managed to maintain their position by moving up to a very high level.says the industrialist, whose group recorded a turnover of 1.4 billion euros in 2022. Today, our province is on the cusp of a new crisis, with similar implications. »
In fact, an ill wind is blowing across this territory a stone's throw from the Swiss border, which concentrates the singularities and excellences of Europe's third industrial power. Because Germany is doing badly. This large market, which extends beyond the nearby Alps, and to which the export economy of the province of Brescia is closely linked, is no longer a sure value. Economically, it is stagnating. And his political future is full of uncertainties.
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Automotive equipment manufacturers in the Brescian region, at the forefront of local industry and inserted in the value chain of major German manufacturers, are worried about its decline, while expecting to be hit more generally by the transition to electric. Nationally, the automotive sector declined by 26.1% between July 2023 and July 2024, returning to the 2013 level, according to Confindustria figures, while equipment manufacturers suffered a contraction of 21.7%.
“The most dynamic dimension of Italian industry embodied in Brescia is represented by medium-sized, family-owned businesses. They are mainly active in the business to businesswith a very high degree of specialization, and are very internationalized”explains Andrea Colli, professor of economic history at Bocconi University in Milan. With 1.62 million inhabitants and a gross domestic product of 45.5 billion euros, the province, where we like to represent itself as a small state directly connected to the economies of Northern Europe and little linked to Rome, recorded 10.2 billion in positive trade balance in 2023. With 13,000 manufacturing companies, the territory is in fourth place among industrial provinces after Milan, Rome and Turin, much more populated metropolises.
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