The Italian government has
"fertilized the soil, now it is up to you to sow the seeds (of
growth)," Industry Minister Federica Guidi told employers' group
Confindustria Thursday at its annual assembly.
She said that the government of Premier Matteo Renzi was
proud to be creating the conditions that business has requested
for growth.
That will involve measures including a new tax credit on
research and development "which now becomes fully operational"
since she has signed the implementing decree, said Guidi.
The government is "doing everything in its power" to
continue helping pull Italy out of the economic stagnation where
it has been mired for years, she said.
"We came out of the crisis, we have started to get back on
top," she said to the group, meeting during Milan Expo 20215.
"Now, we need to pay maximum attention to every choice".
Meanwhile, in answer to questions about polluting steel
giant ILVA, Guidi said the government had no other choice but to
appoint a special commissioner to manage the company.
Confindustria's leader Giorgio Squinzi has raised concerns
about the treatment of ILVA.
"Every alternative would have had a worse outcome," said
Guidi.
Squinzi has said that the judiciary "expropriated" bankrupt
ILVA, which is being run by a government-appointed commissioner.
In January, a court declared ILVA insolvent, with debt
totalling nearly three billion euros.
A Milan magistrate has released 1.2 billion euros seized
from the Riva family, owners of the controversial ILVA plant in
the southern city of Taranto.
The amount is to be used by the government-appointed
special commissioner for ILVA to underwrite bonds that will then
be used to finance environmental clean-up programs.
The company has been mired in controversy over years of
pollution by Europe's largest steel plant.
ILVA has employed some 20,000 people and been blamed for
decades of environmental degradation and high levels of cancer
in the area.
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