Special Economic Areas in Italy: Launch of New Investments

By interministerial decree, published on the Official Journal on the 4^th of January, the allocation of resources have been defined in favor of the eight Special Economic Zones (SEZ) recently instituted for the coastal area of central-southern Italy (namely, SEZ Abruzzo, SEZ Calabria, SEZ Campania, SEZ Ionian Interregional Puglia-Basilicata, SEZ Adriatica Interregional Puglia-Molise, SEZ Eastern Sicily, SEZ Western Sicily).

Such resources amount to 630 million Euros and have been allocated by the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan (“Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza” or, also, “PNRR”), with the main scope to develop infrastructural investment and connect the different port basins with the national transportation network, including the Trans-European Networks (TEN-T). In addition to these resources, the amount of 1.2 billion Euros that the PNRR has reserved for investment activities in the main ports of the Southern Italy shall also be added. It is a strategic development plan, in which several activities are involved for the relaunch of business and the attraction of new investments.

Among the main sectors, being object of new investments in the SEZs, there is the digitalization and strengthening of logistics, green urbanization and the activities for energetic and environmental efficiency in port areas. Furthermore, there is the enhancement of infrastructural resilience and safety to have access to the ports as well as the “connection of last mile” strategy, which is a plan directed to realize effective connections between ports, industrial areas and the transport networks, so as to allow more productive districts and to reduce time and costs in logistics.

The goal is to increase the competitiveness of the Italian port field, which represents great potential, considering that Italy has more than 8.000 kilometers of coastline and an innate marine vocation.

These new measures are additional to the many benefits that are already linked with SEZs, in order to facilitate trade and which operate mainly in the tax field. Among the main tax advantages in force in these areas, there are: the suspension of customs duties for goods that will be stored within the zone, bureaucratic simplifications, special VAT concessions and the halving of the terms for granting authorizations, licenses, permits or administrative concessions. In light of these tax advantages, one of the major points of note for entrepreneurs wishing to operate in the SEZs is the reduction of costs to the Exchequer, by obtaining tax credits linked to investment and trade activities.

In this moment of the development of new Italian port areas, D’Andrea & Partners Legal Counsel is ready to assist enterprises and investors who wish to be present in this market, for the development of their own business, linked to the transportation and the supply of goods at both the national and international level. For more information, please contact us at info@dandreapartners.com