ITALIAN NATIONAL REPORTS - Università Degli Studi Di Palermo

Italy.
ITALIAN NATIONAL REPORTS – WASHINGTON 2010
THE CARDOZO ELECTRONIC LAW BULLETIN, VOL. 16(1) - SPECIAL ISSUE
b) Brief history of the development of foreign investment policies
including current trend of development.
The development of foreign investment policies in Italy has been
comparatively slow compared with other Western countries and, in particular,
with the main European countries 45 . The first activities of territorial
marketing and the adoption of measures to attract investments from abroad
did not take off until the first half of the Nineties of the past Century, after
the Regions were given incentives by the national government through the
ministerial decree on March 16, 1994 (so called “decreto Baratta”, because of
the name of the minister Paolo Baratta who was the promoter) 46 . Since then,
Regions have been active in working out incentives for foreign investors, thus
emphasizing the peculiarities of the territory of each and the natural local
resources that could be an opportunity for investors 47 .
45 The delay in acting to attract foreign investments was matched by a poor scholarly work. The few general
contributions are F Capriglione, L Desiderio, „Investimenti esteri in Italia (profili generali)‟ XVII Enciclopedia
giuridica (Treccani, Roma 1989); M Strizzi, „Investimenti esteri in Italia (diritto valutario)‟ ibid.; A Spallanzani,
„Principi fondamentali dell‟ordinamento valutario italiano. Investimenti esteri in Italia‟ (1986) Rivista del
notariato 395; G Messa, „Gli investimenti esteri in Italia‟ (1984) Rassegna di diritto e tecnica doganale e delle
imposte di fabbricazione 807; G Fontana, „Gli investimenti dei capitali esteri in Italia‟ (1984) Società 610.
46 For a comment of the decree, see N Novacco, „Il «decreto Baratta» del 16 marzo 1994 per la promozione
degli investimenti esteri in Italia‟ (1995) Rivista giuridica del Mezzogiorno 27.
47 Economists deal with the impact of FDI policies on regional economies. See F Praussello, „Una
meta-analisi sui rapporti fra investimenti esteri diretti e crescita di un‟economia regionale‟ (2009) Studi e Note
di Economia 85.