Supporting winemakers with growth in foreign markets
At Vinitaly 2024 Intesa Sanpaolo organised the event “Internationalisation chains: Italian agri-food companies, between markets old and new”, which took stock of the opportunities and challenges in the Italian wine-making sector, in view of the bank's specific focus on agribusiness.
The main opportunities for the sector include:
- international markets, where Italy consolidated its market share in 2022, coming firmly in second place among world exporters, with around one-fifth of world flows: results supported by the excellent qualitative positioning of Italian wine, its strong ties to its territory and the rich biodiversity of Italian vineyards. Work remains to be done on properly positioning the price of the country's wine offerings – which still fetch a low price in relation to their quality
The main challenges for the future include:
- investments in technology and digitalisation of processes, fundamental for the evolution of the sector, which will need to be supported, especially in the Italian context, characterised by smaller companies than at the European level
- the ability to achieve greater structure, including through combinations and a supply chain approach, to have the strength to make the investments needed to continue to compete successfully in international markets
These challenges are also being driven by new consumption trends (young people less interested in structured wines), changing lifestyles (alcohol-free wine) and the quest for a balance between savings and quality (value for money).
Intesa Sanpaolo focuses closely on the agri-food sector:
- it has a specialised sales network of 1,000 professionals and 90 branches capable of handling the entire production chain
- it has 112,000 customers in the agri-food sector, of which more than 11,000 in the wine sector
- it supports around 170 agri-food chains with almost 7,000 suppliers, with disbursements of around €9 billion.
More than 10,000 companies operating in the agribusiness sector receive support for their import/export activities, and around 150 groups are assisted by the Agribusiness Department, with subsidiaries in countries where Intesa Sanpaolo is present or offers financial services.
In fact, Intesa Sanpaolo also supports agri-food companies in their growth in foreign markets, with services such as:
- Discovering foreign potential and identifying opportunities for international growth with the help of foreign trade experts
- Business Strategy, to support companies abroad with legal, tax, commercial and financial aspects
- Dedicated financial solutions, from import/export support financing to more structured solutions (letters of credit, non-recourse discounting of bills, international factoring, international guarantees, etc.), together with training activities
- Direct access to target markets, thanks to the Group's established presence in some 40 countries worldwide, through international subsidiary banks, branches and representation offices
- Partnerships and synergies with Sace, Simest, ICE, chambers of commerce and trade associations
- Events and trade fairs abroad, international delegations and in-depth webinars.
Last updated 18 April 2024 at 15:22:39
