Industria 4.0 becomes 'Impresa 4.0', Calenda "ready for phase 2"

"From today, the plan will no longer be called Industria 4.0, and will become Impresa 4.0. This is a team effort: we have tried to be as quantitative as possible". Thus Italian Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda presents the second phase of the national plan, Impresa 4.0. "This is the opening of our second chapter, and in it skills and employment will be the main protagonists". He emphasises that "from January to June we had a trend of orders that marked a + 9%, in line with the objectives set in the first months of the year, and a very sharp cut in reserves, which for many years had been steady. The tools are working".But the plan records more than just positive elements: "We are not doing well in the field of venture capital", observes Calenda. "We are not in line with our objectives, growth is too low".

In addition, the South is not performing as well as the North and "makes much less use of the incentives" and also needs to work on awareness: "The Industria 4.0 plan was little known, today there is not a businessman in manufacturing who does not know what it is, and this is thanks to a team effort that included the world of business".  However, the results are satisfactory for the minister, who says that the plan is "on the right track".  Thus, in the first 8 months of 2017 "the sum total of claims guaranteed by the Guarantee Fund increased by 10.7%" and "from September 2011 to September 2017, a total of 1.9 billion in financial incentives was granted in development contracts (of which 1.7 was in the South) and more than 53,000 jobs were created or safeguarded".