Run (an enterprise) and dream

Present and future of the sector in the analyses made by Assografici and Acimga. Food for thought from the annual joint graphic-converters and machine producers’ assembly. And packaging? Once again it is spurring on growth.

Run (an enterprise) and dream

The market encourages experimenting with ever new synergies, planning out the future with imagination without getting fossilised on one idea. With this elegy of movement – thought and action - Innocenzo Cipolletta closed the general assembly of Assografici and Acimga associates (Milan, 18th June), this year too joint expression of the two Confindustria associations, underlining the importance of acting as a system. On stage the respective presidents – Marco Spada at the end of his four year mandate in Assografici and his successor Piero Capodieci, and Ugo Barzanò, reconfirmed at the head of Acimga,– that, as tradition has it, delineated the balance and the prospects for their respective sectors.
A balance without a doubt satisfactory for the machine producers, that for the third year running closed the business year with many positive indicators +1.4% in turnover, +1.5% exports (that are close to 80% of turnover), a commercial trade balance that is dropping but that is still all the same at 440 million Euro.
More complex the balance of the graphics-converters, the graphics sector in fact in 2006 registered an average drop of 0.5% in turnover and 4.1%% in production, with results very different from one segment to the other of the sector, things getting back on their feet though with exports at 5.4% and a total balance of 826 million Euro. The paper&cardboard makers-converters in turn feature an increase in turnover of 3%, with production at +2% and exports at +6.2%, all the same there being a considerable difference within the segment between the results of flexible packaging (+6%), bags (+3.6%) and corrugated cardboard (2.2%), seen against the drop in folding cases and boxes (-1.9%) and a stability as regards other paper&carboard processing.
And the future? It will once again be drawn by the applications in packaging (see table 1 and 2).

The analyses of assografici
«Four years have gone by in a flash. For me they have left an indelible trace, they helped me to grow and, aboveall, to give what I was able to give to the association». This, basically, the salutation of the outgoing president of Assografici, Marco Spada, that at then end of his mandate thanked all the “fantastic travelling companions” with whom he has shared an intense, profuse experience marked by intelligence and human commitment. A commitment that immediately centred on “closeness to the companies, the rediscovery of projects immediately and practically useful to the associates, striving to combine them with the mission of protecting vested interests of categories like our own association”. The sector has registered and appreciated this.
Of the countless projects started up under his presidency, two in particular were of such scope as to not run out in a few years of work. Spada counted them in the “legacy” left to his successor: “to find a solution to the unfair competition of some areas of the world [….] and to complete the grouping together of the associations that represent the graphics-publishing-packaging segment”.
Legacy readily taken up and relaunched by the person who is about to preside over Assografici for the coming period and that held an equally vibrant, non ritual talk, and who underlines a new feature: for the first time in 60 years of associative life the president of Assografici has not been drawn from the graphic-publishing sector but from that of paper&cardboard-converting (Piero Capodieci has spent his entire working life in the said area). Indeed a significant point: it has been the intense development of paper&cardboard and converting, an evolution that has accompanied that of society and its models of life and consumption, that has turned this particular segment into the driving force of the entire sector.

Suggest, push, propose - Three words, almost a slogan, synthesizing - for Assografici’s new president - the role of an association of entrepreneurs. That could (should) today evermore become «a place for sharing and discussing experience, a workshop of ideas for making strategy, producing competitive scenarios, placing associates in the condition to read the weak signals and grasp opportunities ahead of time […]». Because the stakes are high and the period is a delicate one: «For some months now the economy has started to grow again, but our production system is still more vulnerable than those of our largest competitors».
In Italy, in fact, the segment is seen to be mature, featuring a structural manufacturing overcapacity and also showing little inclination to group together or even to network, «to the making up of the socalled “extended company” that would enable us to limit the size gap and compete on the same level at least on a European level». Field in which Italy today occupies an authoritative third place, with 12% of EU output behind Germany and the UK in the graphics field; and with 16% behind Germany and France in paper&cardboard (but Italy is in second place in corrugated board production).

The great objectives - In his talk Capodieci hence relaunched a theme dear to his predecessor - the essentiality of operating in close contact with the companies - also mentioning programs that need to be achieved. The accent fell on longterm projects and on some fields indicated as “fundamental” for a development strategy. Here hence, the call for environmental sustainability (on which to spend the experience built up as president of Conai first and foremost and Comieco after that), to the need for a further involvement of the entrepreneurs in the life of the association, and a greater effectiveness in the actions of lobbying at national and community level where «we evermore play most of our cards» and where priorities need to be defined and relations strengthened.
Lastly, the appeal is to resume with the federative project that could also involve publishers and paper manufacturers: because the time is ripe and because «as Marco Spada underlined, a further grouping together, the broader the better, in certain precise fields of activity, would lead to a better protection and representation of associated companies». A well-deserved protection. The print, paper and publishing sectors are “resilient”: this despite the not so brilliant performance put in by the Italian economy over the last 6 years, and continue to show a growth that is among the best in the Italian system, with a total turnover of 42 billion Euro, over 250 thousand employees and a solidly positive commercial balance.
Objectives and dreams? The answer in a quotation by Anatole France: «To take great steps we not only have to act, we also have to dream, not only plan but also to believe».