New small immigrant-owned
businesses grew by 44% between April and June, making up 10% of
total individually owned firms in Italy, a quarterly study of
foreign non-European entrepreneurship by Unioncamere and
Infocamere chambers of commerce associations showed Monday.
Italy currently numbers 325,000 small businesses owned by
non-European immigrants.
One in five, or 63,000 firms, are headed by Moroccans,
while 46,000 of small-business owners are Chinese, 30,564 are
Albanian, and 23,000 are from Bangladesh.
As well, small-and-medium enterprise federation CNA said
that at least 16% of individually owned businesses in Rome - or
30,000 out of a total of 182,000 - are headed by non-European
immigrants, and they employ 35,000 Italians.
"The data confirms the dynamism of this entrepreneurial
sector," said CNA Rome section chief Indra Perera.
"Immigrant-owned small businesses are also acting as an
economic driver in the region, employing young people and others
that have been excluded from the labor market," Perera said.
"They also stimulate the creation of more new startups,
both Italian- and immigrant-owned," she said.
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