Italian companies face a difficult context: high interest rates, slowing growth, redefinition of value chains, fragmentation of global markets. In fact, one is underway triple transition: digital, climate and geopolitical, which our companies not only have to face, but from which, if well supported, they can emerge with important competitive advantages. For this to happen, Italy needs more productive investments. Made in Italy is navigating these adversities and changes better than other industrial systems, but if left to itself it would still risk falling behind over time.
Il Transition Plan 5.0 responds to these needs well 6.3 billion euros for the two-year period 2024-2025, an endowment coming from the remodulation of the Pnrr. Approved by the European Union together with the rest of the remodulation at the beginning of December 2023, and by the Council of Ministers a few days ago, all that is missing for Transition 5.0 are the implementing decrees from the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, which should arrive in the next few weeks. In the short term, therefore, business investments will once again be able to count on substantial incentives, which will be able to help support the anemic growth of these last few quarters.
Transition 5.0 stands in fact two essential pillars: digitalisation and green transition. As regards digitalisation, Transition 5.0 is the evolution of the measures that have taken place from 2015 to today: super and hyper-depreciation and the subsequent modulations of Industry 4.0. Businesses, regardless of size or sector, will be able to receive an important tax credit for investments in machinery and technological intangible assets. ?The main traits that have made past iterations of this incentive a success are therefore preserved: universality, automaticity, focus on technology. The incentivized investments span a wide range of sectors, from the purchase of tangible and intangible assets to the promotion of self-production of energy from renewable sources. Furthermore, there are funds for staff training, to match capital expenditure with skills expenditure.
The main innovation compared to the past is the attention to energy efficiency. This is a consequence of the fact that part of the European funds earmarked for Transition 5.0 belong to RePowerI, the European energy security program introduced after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To benefit from the incentive, companies will therefore have to present a certification of the energy savings that the investment is intended to generate.
Greater savings will correspond to more generous tax credit rates, favoring ambitious energy efficiency targets for new processes. Some important aspects will be clarified in the implementing decrees (register of certifiers, criteria for encouraging new businesses and new production lines, control methods), but the framework is clear: new production investments must favor energy savings in a way to contribute to the ecological transition.
Compared to the past, the presence of an ex ante certification is a further step to take to benefit from the incentive; it is therefore essential that the implementing decrees make it as quick and simple as possible. Furthermore, certification will allow resources to be concentrated on investments that actually improve energy efficiency, contributing to tangible benefits in the medium to long term. Furthermore, building on past experiences, reinforced incentives are provided for photovoltaic panels produced in Europe, in order to counteract competition from systems from suppliers who are technologically less reliable and politically distant from us.
All in all Transition 5.0 is a welcome evolution of Industry 4.0, which responds to the current challenges for the Italian economy. However, it will be necessary for companies to quickly grasp its meaning and hurry to plan investments. The timeframes are tight, they are those of the Pnrr, until mid-2026. In the meantime, the tool to deal with the triple transition exists today: the digital one, thanks to investments eligible in technology; the climate one, thanks to efficiency and the reduction of emissions; the geopolitical one, thanks to the contribution to the objective of European energy independence.
* Senior advisor Vitale & Co.
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– 2024-04-09 01:29:00
