Economy - published on 25 January 2024
Source: Press Office Presidency of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso - Belluno | Dolomites
In both provinces, even net of sole proprietorships, trade (wholesale and retail), catering and manufacturing lose businesses. Business locations and employee branches grow for financial and insurance activities, professional activities and tourist hospitality.
Treviso, January 24, 2024.
President Mario Pozza’s comment
The balance of business demographics at the end of the year is affected by an important administrative procedure, by the Chamber of Commerce Business Registry, which was concluded last quarter. More than 1,600 sole proprietorships in the province of Treviso and more than 170 in the province of Belluno were cancelled through this procedure. These firms were cancelled – explains the President of the Treviso-Belluno Chamber of Commerce, Mario Pozza – for failure to carry out management acts in the last three years, pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 247/200.
More than half of these ex officio cancellations involved, for the province of Treviso, construction (34.3%), retail trade (20.3%) and manufacturing (13.3%, fashion system and engineering in particular). Of these cancellations, 57.1% involved firms led predominantly or exclusively by foreign nationals.
For the province of Belluno, about half of the office cancellations related to sole proprietorships in the construction (25.4 %) and retail trade (24.3%) sectors. 46.3% percent of the Belluno area’s terminations involved firms that were (predominantly or exclusively) foreign-owned.
With these numbers – Pozza continues – comparison with the past becomes complicated. These are important numbers that should not be interpreted as a contraction of the entrepreneurial fabric, but as a cleansing of legal entities somewhat on the margins of the economy, formally active but inoperative, as it was possible to ascertain through the tools in the possession of our Business Registry.
For statistical purposes, it is necessary to consider the dynamics net of sole proprietorships, i.e., net of this data cleaning process – he explains – so as to compare the stock of firms at the end of 2023 with that at the end of 2022 “with the same field of observation”.
The actual balance then becomes as follows: the province of Treviso loses 205 businesses in one year, while the province of Belluno loses 52.
For Treviso, the bulk of the decline – Pozza explains – is concentrated in wholesale and retail trade (almost -150 businesses on an annual basis, again net of sole proprietorships). The number of firms in manufacturing is also down (-113 firms distributed among engineering, wood furniture and fashion system). But it should be pointed out that for metalmechanics the contraction of business locations is accompanied by a similar growth in employee branches (+41 units in the last year). Also shrinking in one year is the restaurant industry by -75 firms.
On the other hand, the tourism hospitality sector (+20 locations, including sole proprietorships, and +27 branches) bucks the positive trend. Also growing are financial and insurance activities (more than 80 more than in December 2022) and scientific and technical professional activities (almost 60 more). Agriculture, on the other hand, shows opposite trends: including sole proprietorships, viticulture grows (+74 branches), against the decline in livestock (-43) and cereal (-152) activities.
In Belluno the decline, excluding sole proprietorships, is as we said -52 firms, mostly concentrated in manufacturing (-30 locations), another 30 fewer firms we count among wholesale trade, retail trade and catering.
The stock of active businesses therefore settled, at the end of December, at 77,698 business locations in the province of Treviso and 13,471 locations in the province of Belluno.
The growth of dependent local units (those we have called branches) – Pozza concludes – remains sustained,: almost 240 units more on an annual basis in Treviso (for a stock of 19,121 active units at the end of December 2023) and +60 units in Belluno (for a stock of 4,608 units). This is a phenomenon that we have been reporting for quite some time and that needs to be investigated within the framework of broader reasoning on the reasons for the attractiveness of our territory (when behind a branch there is a multinational group or in any case external to our territory) and at the time to understand the “campaign-buying” done in the territory by our companies.
Business demographics in the provinces of Treviso and Belluno: main evidence
Infocamere has released data on business demographics as of December 31, 2023.
According to the snapshot taken at the end of the year, there were 77,698 active businesses in the province of Treviso and 13,471 businesses in the province of Belluno.
A comparison with the consistencies with December 2022 shows a decrease of -1,791 locations for Treviso and -267 businesses for Belluno. But it is a result that, as was also observed in the previous monitoring, is affected by a substantial number of ex officio cancellations made by the Chamber of Commerce Business Registry, which led to the termination of more than 1,600 sole proprietorships for the province of Treviso and more than 170 sole proprietorships for the province of Belluno for failure to complete management acts in the last three years, pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 247/2004.
More than half of these ex officio cancellations involved, for the province of Treviso, construction (34.3%), retail trade (20.3%) and manufacturing (13.3%, fashion system and engineering in particular). Of these cancellations, 57.1% involved businesses led predominantly or exclusively by foreign nationals.
