Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti
today stressed the importance of helping small and medium-sized
Italian firms become stronger on international markets, speaking
after a visit to the pavilion of Italian companies at the 2017
International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airport.
"Italy is excellently represented both by large companies and
by many small and medium-sized firms, most of which, though not
all of them, are gathered in regional clusters with innovation
abilities of absolute interest" at the aviation and aerospace
exhibition, the minister told ANSA.
"Space is an important foreign market", she added.
The defense minister also stressed the importance of helping
small and medium-sized firms become stronger and competitive on
foreign markets to improve their production, innovation and
employment capabilities.
She went on to highlight the capacity that Italy's small and
medium-sized companies have to evolve: "I like to remember a
company that used to produce fridges and reinvented itself in
the aeronautic sector with excellent success".
For the minister this is demonstration of "Italy's
extraordinary ability of Italy to produce things of great
quality and to be able to renew itself when markets change".
The minister visited the stands of large companies like
defense and aerospace giant Leonardo and aerospace group Avio at
the exhibition, as well as those of many small and medium-sized
businesses in the sector.
She was handed by the president of Italian Space Agency
(ASI), Roberto Battiston, and by the CEO of Thales Alenia Space,
Donato Amoroso, a model of the first earth observation satellite
system Terra Cosmo SkyMed launched 10 years ago, the outcome of
a dual civil-military program funded by the education and
defense ministries.
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