Businesses in the foreground at the Tuscan Identity Festival. The meeting ‘Tuscany does business’, which was held at Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati in Florence, was chaired by the councilor for economy and tourism. Leonardo Marras, and focused attention on the activities and initiatives carried out by the Tuscany Region in recent years to support the economic and digital transition of the Tuscan production system, focusing on research, innovation, digitalisation and competitiveness.
In the new seven-year period 2021-2027 of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), over 500 million euros are available to Tuscany, almost 100 million more than in the previous programming, from 426.9 million. If in the previous seven-year period these public loans triggered investments of almost 1.2 billion, it is estimated that with the new ERDF PR this could reach over 2.7 billion.
“We will be even more at the side of our businesses – said the President of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani in his speech – Tuscany is often identified throughout the world with tourism, which certainly represents an important and essential part of our GDP, but the real The essence of the region is also represented by that fabric of small and medium-sized enterprises, industrial but even more often artisanal, creative, service-based, which is the true strength of our land. In these difficult years the Region has used the resources coming from the European Union, far superior to those received from the central Government, to strengthen this fabric, support it, help it innovate and face the new challenges of globalisation. And our attention goes not only to the large centers and large productions, but to all of ‘widespread Tuscany’”.
In this morning’s meeting, Councilor Marras presented 21 Tuscan realities, of various kinds and located in different and distant territories, which thanks to the European resources made available by the Region have been able to progress on various fronts: digitalisation, innovation, search for new markets, purchase of new machinery, application of more ecological production systems and more.
“The identity of the Tuscan economic fabric is not only made up of the best-known companies and the best-known stories, but of a fabric of various realities, closely intertwined with each other and rooted in the territory. With this initiative we wanted to show the results produced thanks to the European investments of the previous seven years, which in many cases have allowed these small and medium-sized companies to take the necessary step forward to establish themselves or innovate their production systems. These 21 examples offer a cross-section of society throughout Tuscany: from the most developed areas to the most difficult ones, from community cooperatives, a Tuscan peculiarity, to natural shopping centres, chemical industries, artisan companies, agritourisms, companies specializing in new technologies and more”.
“Our economic system – concluded the councilor – has demonstrated its ability to adapt by facing the difficulties of recent years and I also want to thank the trade associations for this. With effort, courage and determination they have not given up on innovating and investing and the Region has been at their side in this.”
Here are the 21 realities presented
• Bel Chimica srl: chemical products for cleaning industrial surfaces, with a contribution of 350,000 euros in 4 years it has innovated production, invested in research, and sought new markets.
• Camping Il Veliero-Aurelia holiday park: It has innovated camping and areas equipped for tourist-accommodation activities.
• Compagnia del Benessere srl: aesthetics which used the contribution of 70,000 euros for the purchase of new machinery.
• Cooperativa Itinera: Itinera operates in the sector in the management of museum services and tourist reception. From 2017 to today it has created 6 projects on sustainable and responsible tourism, funding around one million per project.
• Ecohabitat srl – systems for the production of energy from renewable sources; with a contribution of 46,200 euros he expanded the business and renovated the premises for the new headquarters in Prato.
• Foto Locchi Srl – with a contribution of 6,760 euros for digital micro-innovation, has developed algorithms for mapping the metadata of images from the photographic studio archive (70 thousand images).
• The natural shopping centers of the province of Pistoia: with 24,000 euros of funding received they have implemented various initiatives in the natural shopping centers of Ponte Buggianese, Serravalle Pistoiese and Pieve a Nievole.
• Il Falconiere srl: resort that used 41,400 euros from the aid tender aimed at containing and combating the Covid emergency to redevelop the structure and 60,145 euros to participate in international fairs, communication actions, consultancy.
• La Montagna Cortonese Soc. Coop: is a community cooperative which, thanks to 33,000 euros from the tender to support digital innovation in inland, mountain and island areas, has created a coworking space and a ceramic atelier.
• Netresult srl: the company produces technologies for corporate communication aimed at smart working and has developed thanks to 62 thousand euros from the RIDI (Recurrent, Immaterial, Digita, International) project for the digital micro-innovation of businesses.
• Nuova Simat Srl: the company deals with industrial mechanical maintenance. It invested in machinery, equipment, furnishings and building renovation thanks to 100 thousand euros for investments aimed at post-Covid recovery.
• Piccini Paolo spa: design, construction and management of fuel systems, with 135,111 euros of financing it has created a project to optimize the energy consumption of electric vehicle charging stations.
• Publiacqua Spa: 585,000 euros co-financed Idro Smart, a circular economy and environmental sustainability project for the purification of urban waste water
• Quid group informatica spa: with a loan of around one million euros, the eServant projects were created, for the management of events within small/medium sized systems; SeaFactory, for tracking fish products; Operator 4.0, for planning interventions on electricity, gas and water distribution networks.
• Ritz srl – Mantovani Clothing Shop: the Mantovani Kids boutique was renovated with 42,776 from the tender to combat the Covid emergency.
• San Giovanni delle Contee (Gr), cooperative society: created a multifunctional space with tavern (Osteria Maccalè) and provided services to combat depopulation.
• Savio Firmino furniture: as leader of the COLUX project, a co-design platform using Mixed reality, he received a total contribution of 670,312 to develop it.
• Sfb Resort Miramonti Forte dei Marmi: renovation and redevelopment of spaces through aid aimed at containing and combating the Covid emergency.
• Volaterra bistrot: renovation of the restaurant in the center of Volterra, staff training, updating of the commercial model thanks to 15,000 euros from the ‘Guardians of the mountains 2022’ tender.
• Volumio srl – with 100,000 euros from the innovative startup tender, “Volumio primo” was created, a hardware and software solution for listening to music in high fidelity.
• Zerynth spa: Support to manufacturing companies in monitoring production processes and development of an automated paper machine for the production of tis paper.
