Rising energy prices in Italy hit small and medium-sized enterprises hard, government stabilizes prices

Euronet on January 19th, according to Euronews, the Italian Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises (CONFAPI) said that due to rising energy prices in Europe, Italian small and medium-sized enterprises pay 75% more electricity bills and 133% more gas bills than large enterprises. Many businesses are forced to choose to operate at night to cut costs.

Rising energy prices in Italy hit SMEs hard.

According to reports, according to the latest statistics from Eurostat, Italian small and medium-sized enterprises pay 75.6% higher electricity bills and 133.5% higher gas bills than large companies. This difference is not conducive to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, which directly affects the scale of small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to Eurostat, the cost of electricity for Italian SMEs is 15% higher than the EU average, and the cost of gas is 7.6% higher. Taxes account for 40.7% of the above expenses, which is 5 percentage points higher than the EU average tax burden. Recently, the Italian government has launched a series of relief measures, and the taxes and fees on electricity and gas consumption by enterprises have shown a slight downward trend.

According to the Italian Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises and Handicrafts, Italian small and medium-sized enterprises account for nearly 99% of the total number of Italian enterprises and provide 60% of jobs in private enterprises, which has also become one of the important characteristics of Made in Italy. However, the Italian business environment is not friendly to small and medium-sized enterprises. Compared with other European countries, small and medium-sized enterprises are the most vulnerable to fluctuations in energy prices.

In order to reduce electricity and gas bills, the Draghi government has developed a series of interventions, allocating 8.5 billion euros in the second half of 2021 to ensure that the available power does not exceed 16.5 kW, for domestic electricity users and general systems for non-domestic low-voltage users Fees, and significantly reduce fees for non-domestic electricity users; reduce VAT to 5% on natural gas for all users; increase for domestic customers in economically disadvantaged electricity and gas industries, as well as domestic customers in serious health conditions subsidy.

The Italian Association of Artisans and Small Businesses (CGIA) explained that the effect of this new legislation, which subsidizes the cost of energy for large industries, effectively removes the latter's charges and tax items, redistributing them to all other excluded items. Businesses outside the franchise. With the implementation of the Draghi government's energy measures, the energy price gap for SMEs narrowed slightly.

The Association of Artisans and Small Businesses emphasizes that in Europe, the comparison of Italian SMEs with European producers of the same size shows that energy costs in Italy are still higher than in other countries. Among all countries in the euro area, Italian SMEs pay 12.6% less for energy than German companies, which is 15% higher than the European average.