La valutazione dell’investimento pubblico nell’industria della trasformazione ittica in Sicilia. Un’indagine esplorativa

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the effects and impact on family businesses of policies based on public funding to sustain the development of declining regions. It presents the case of a measure promoted the Sicilian Regional Government to try to revert the economic decline of the fishing industry in Sicily. Sicily is the largest Island in the Mediterranean Sea, and Fishing has been a traditional activity in the region for centuries. In the last decades, the industry has been facing serious problems, including increasing obsolescence of the fleet, inefficient marketing facilities, fish depletion in local waters. Mazara del Vallo, located in the South-West of the island, and the most important city related to such industry, is a good example of the decline of the industry in the Island. The most important fishing port of Italy and the second of the Mediterranean sea, it accommodates the largest navy and fishing fleet, and includes a lot of activities relating to the trawl fishing, the ocean fishing, the transformation of fish and its marketing. The fishing industry has pull for decades the economy of Mazara, reaching the top of success in the eighties of the twentieth century, when numerous firms – most of them family businesses - were active, covering different phases of the fishing value chain. Until some years ago, there were about 250 fishing companies, with more than 2,000 employees and about 15 fishing processing firms (Ponte, Tomaselli, Agrò, Fazio, 2016). In the last three decades, the solidness of the fishing sector has been challenged and the area has gone through a continuous decline, that has induced a sense of despair among entrepreneurs and an attitude of resigned pessimism. Similar decline has been experienced in the other fishing cities of the Island: Palermo, Trapani, Sciacc, Porto Empedocle, Messina, and Siracusa. With an aim to try to revert the economic decline of the area, the Sicilian Regional Government has promoted various measures, among them, measure 2.3 of The European Fisheries Fund, that has been devoted to support investments in new technologies and new products, with the aim of improving working conditions, improving and monitoring hygiene conditions and product quality; supporting high quality products for market niches; reducing the negative impact of fishing industries on the environment; incentivizing the use of underexploited species, mainly coming from Sicilian herds and from by-products and waste; supporting the production and marketing of new products, the application of new technologies and the development of innovative production methods; promoting the marketing of products coming from local landings and local aquaculture; promoting sustainable employment in the sector. Under support of such measure, about 121 projects have been funded in the 2009-2015 period, for an overall investment of about € 80 millions, covered by public funds for € 48 millions. This paper analyses the impact and outcomes of such policy, by presenting the results of a survey involving 14 projects in the areas of Palermo and Trapani. The survey collected information about the characteristics of the project funded by that measure; perceptions of entrepreneurs in the transformation sector about their experience with such measure, and their assessments of the role and importance of both external and internal factors in determining the final outcome of the investment project. Even though for the two covered areas the survey involves almost the entire universe of funded projects, the study has explorative character, since the sample is not statistically representative of all beneficiaries.