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05 April 2021 Economy of the South always with the handbrake on: this is confirmed by a research by the Confcommercio Research Office, according to which in the last twenty-five years the share of GDP produced by the South on the national total has decreased, passing by over 24% in 1995 to 22% in 2019.



l 'Even

jobs

slows, with a level that showed a cumulative gain of just a quarter of the national average (4.1% vs. 16.4%).



This latter phenomenon is mainly affected by the effects of the reduction in the resident population, in particular the

youth

population

, which in the South fell by over 1.5 million in the period considered.



According to the Confcommercio Research Department, the main causes of this disparity are "structural defects such as bureaucracy, crime and

infrastructural deficiencies

".



If these defects "were reduced in such a way as to bring their endowments to the levels observed in the best Italian regions, the southern gross product would grow by more than 20% at the end of the period (+90 billion euros) compared to a scenario in the

absence of interventions

" , says the research.



Differences, on the other hand, have increased in the meantime, at least since the 2008 crisis: the ratio of

real

per capita output

of a Southern inhabitant to that of a North-West inhabitant drops from 0.55 (55%) to 0.52. .



In terms of population, the weight of the South on the total of Italy goes from 36.4% to 33.9% and

young people in particular are decreasing

.

If between 1995 and 2019 Italy as a whole loses over a million young people (from just over 11 million to just over 10 million), it is the southern youngsters, who have decreased in the last 25 to one and a half million. 



"It is quite evident that, in the future, the greatest fears for the post-pandemic are concentrated on the danger of returning to growth at the insufficient rates of the recent past. To avert this danger,

greater resources

are needed

, also of European origin, and a of reforms with the aim of increasing and better using productive and human capital, as well as exploiting the enormous potential of tourism ", concludes the Confcommercio Research Office, according to which in absolute value the foreign presences of the whole South are lower to those of Lazio alone.



An action plan for infrastructures to accelerate


The directive for 2021, to accelerate the construction of the works, in which the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Enrico Giovannini, has precisely in view of a relaunch of activities, especially in the South. set 4 political priorities ranging from the development of sustainable and resilient infrastructures to improving the effectiveness of the department. 



Four

political

priorities

ranging from the development of sustainable and resilient infrastructures to improving the effectiveness of the ministry's action, from which

17 strategic

and

58 operational

objectives

derive

.

These are the numbers of the directive for the administrative activity 2021 of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, signed in recent days by Minister Enrico Giovannini, which aims, among other things, to speed up the construction of the works.

To make the ministry's action even more effective, the variable component of the remuneration of managers and staff will depend on the achievement of the objectives.