{"id":192,"date":"2023-04-03T19:26:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T12:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/italia-e-spagna\/diplomazia-economica\/fare-affari-in-italia\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T15:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T08:44:14","slug":"fare-affari-in-italia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/italia-e-vietnam\/diplomazia-economica\/fare-affari-in-italia\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing business in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy is the\u00a0third<\/strong>\u00a0largest<\/strong>\u00a0economy<\/strong>\u00a0in the Eurozone with a domestic market of 60 million people and a GDP at current prices of USD 2.42 billion (IMF, April 2025). Italy is one of the main gateways to a market of\u00a0500 million consumers in the European Union and 270 million consumers in North Africa and the Middle East<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Italy is the 8\u00b0 largest manufacturing economy in the world\u00a0 and the 4\u00b0 largest country in the world by total exports (2024). The value of Italian exports in 2024 reached EUR 675 billion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our country is the second most attractive country in the EU, attracting \u20ac35.6 billion in foreign capital for greenfield projects (World Investment Report 2025).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Italy is home to numerous centers of research and development excellence and\u00a0over 150 innovative districts<\/strong>. Currently,\u00a015 Italian universities are among the top 500 universities in the world<\/strong>, and Italy is the second most represented European country in the QS World University Rankings (QS World University Rankings 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Italian researchers actively participate in or manage European R&D centres and networks, such as\u00a0CERN<\/strong>\u2018s Particle Physics Laboratory and facilities of high competence and transnational interest in sectors such as aerospace and earth observation. Italy has a prominent role in the international scientific community and scientific production has grown faster than most other countries. In particular,\u00a0Italy is the sixth most prolific nation in the world in terms of the number of scientific publications in various fields<\/strong>. Our country also\u00a0ranks 9th in the top 10 of scientific research in terms of publications produced in the field of Artificial Intelligence<\/strong>\u00a0(ranking led by China, the United States, the United Kingdom and India, considering the period between 2018 and 2023).<\/p>\n

Italian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are among the most innovative in Europe: <\/strong>the percentage of SMEs that have introduced product and process, strategic and organizational innovations is higher than the EU average.<\/p>\n

Italy is the second largest manufacturing economy <\/strong>in Europe (1,076 billion euro production value).\u00a0 In particular, in the pharmaceutical sector<\/strong>, where both national and multinational companies operate successfully, Italy has affirmed its role as Europe\u2019s leading producer, with pharmaceutical production amounting to EUR 56 billion in 2024 (data Farmindustria, July 2025).\u00a0Italy\u00a0ranks first in the world in terms of growth in the value of pharmaceutical industry exports between 2021 and 2023, with a jump of $13.6 billion (Symobola Foundation).<\/p>\n

Italy is the European country with the highest percentage of recycling on total waste<\/strong> (91.6%, twice the EU average of 57.9%). (Symbola Foundation, 2025)<\/p>\n

Italy ranks\u00a0first in Europe in terms of the number of organic farms<\/strong>, with 82,627 operators, ahead of France (60,522), Spain (55,851), Germany (36,688), and Austria (26,251). With 856 designations, Italy also ranks\u00a0first in Europe for registered and protected agri-food and wine products<\/strong>: 584 PDO, 268 PGI, and 4 TSG. Italy has a\u00a0share of food products with chemical residues above the legal limits equal to 0.98%<\/strong>\u00a0of the total, ranking second in Europe and first among the continent\u2019s major countries (2022). Over the last 20 years, Italian agriculture has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by a greater percentage than other large EU countries (France, Germany, and Spain) and the EU-27 average (2021).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, our country is the\u00a0world\u2019s largest operator in renewables, with 63.3 GW of capacity managed in 2023<\/strong>. In 2023, Italy entered the top 10 best photovoltaic markets in the world, with 5.2 GW of new solar plants installed.<\/p>\n

Italy\u00a0ranks third in the world in terms of trade balance in furniture with $10.9 billion<\/strong>, preceded by China ($119 billion) and Vietnam ($12.8 billion). Italy ranks\u00a0first in Europe and second in the world for conference tourism<\/strong>, with 553 conferences hosted in 2023 (Symbola Foundation).<\/p>\n

Italy has the most efficient\u00a0goods clearance<\/strong>\u00a0system, which is now fully digitalised.<\/p>\n

Investing in Italy means having access to an immense\u00a0wealth of intellectual and specialised knowledge<\/strong>\u00a0that is unique in the world in all fields, and to extraordinary know-how in strategic sectors such as machinery, automation, fashion and design, food and cuisine. In recent years, Italy has also opened up to foreign investment in sensitive sectors such as energy, networks, telecommunications and transport.<\/p>\n

Italian cities are embellished with a countless number of monuments and works of art whose beauty is appreciated and recognized internationally. In fact, the country\u00a0ranks first<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>in the<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>UNESCO ranking<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>(classifica UNESCO<\/a>) for the number of World Heritage Sites (60 declared sites, 2024).<\/p>\n

Today, Italy ranks\u00a0first in Europe for regional tourism competitiveness and second in Europe for tourist arrivals<\/strong>. With almost 58 million international arrivals, we rank fifth in the global ranking of the most visited countries. (World Travel & Tourism Council \u2013 WTTC). In the first seven months of 2025, Italy confirmed its position as the global market leader, with total visitor numbers up 5.7% and international visitor numbers up 10.45%. The sector generated revenues of over \u20ac25 billion in the first quarter of this year alone.<\/p>\n

Learn <\/span>more <\/span>about <\/span>key <\/span>sectors <\/span>and <\/span>how <\/span>to <\/span>do <\/span>business <\/span>in <\/span>Italy <\/span>on <\/span>Invest <\/span>in <\/span>Italy<\/span><\/a> |\u00a0<\/span>Italian Trade Agency<\/span><\/span> (<\/span>ice.<\/span>it).<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy is the\u00a0third\u00a0largest\u00a0economy\u00a0in the Eurozone with a domestic market of 60 million people and a GDP at current prices of USD 2.42 billion (IMF, April 2025). Italy is one of the main gateways to a market of\u00a0500 million consumers in the European Union and 270 million consumers in North Africa and the Middle East. Italy […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":188,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-192","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6276,"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/192\/revisions\/6276"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conshochiminh.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}