Free trade and competitiveness

Freeing up markets entails a variety of phenomena: opening up to competition, increasing efficiency, offering greater choice to the consumer and improving access to capital markets for businesses. Discussion here involved all players. First participants focused on the government, and the Authorities that supervise competition and liberalization. Then they turned to Italy’s system of businesses and financial intermediaries that are led to look for new market and to rationalize their own productive processes. Third, they discussed the capital markets that helped the liberalization process: freer regimes now enjoy a lower cost of capital thanks to increased efficiency and transparency. As for local administrations, liberalization favored a shift to the private sector, and public-private partnerships. Finally, it was agreed that free markets help development on a microeconomic level and also favor social mobility and general efficiency.