Introduction

October 8, 2008

Introduction

Some months ago I read an article on the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. It was about the export of Italian weapons, which increased again in 2007 of 9,4% to 2369 million Euros.

This article was based on the annual Report to Parliament of Conceal Presidency. The increase is important because it’s just after a period of huge growing: in fact, in 2006, the value of licenses of export released by the ministry of Foreign Affairs increased of 61%.

Very important is the order to Pakistan for anti-aircraft defense systems and to Turkey for patrollers and naval artilleries.

The first factory for value is Mbda Italia, a society which belongs to Finmeccanica group and is specialized in  missiles, with 442,9 millions for selling to Pakistan the Spada anti-aircraft missiles. In the hit list of the countries that import Italian weapons, we can find Pakistan (471,6 millions), followed by Finland, Turkey, Great Britain and United States.

The second factory for exportation is Intermarine in the naval field. Then, we can mention also Fincantieri, Agusta-Westland and Oto Melara.

 What I was most interested in, apart all this numbers and percentiles, is how Italians could be so strong in the market of weapons and how people in this country is so misinformed about this production.

I guess the answer lays in the fact that most of our production is destined to export, so our internal market is not as broad as it could be, for example, in the United States.

There are strict laws about weapons detention in Italy, so that people is extremely discouraged in buying guns or rifles. Now, I’m not here to judge whether these laws are fair or not, just to mention them as a cause of the misinformation and relative shortage of internal market.

Another cause, obviously, could be the fact that talking about weapons and war always causes eternal discussions that often end in political and commercial interests. It’s certainly a “raw nerve” that nobody wants to touch because it could give pain to the entire public opinion.

Italian factories are so forced to sell their products to other countries, but following the typical Italian care for quality and precision. This is why they are always more well-known all over the world and a larger number of governments and industries want to make business with them. 

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