Our Law Firm, which was established over fifty years ago, is considered one of Italy's leading international Law Firms engaged in rendering professional services involving international corporate and financial transactions. The Firm has wide experience in channeling Italian companies into the international market, thereby enabling them to achieve greater competitiveness through cost saving by eliminating tax and financial burdens as much as possible.

Accustomed in the course of our legal practice to weigh up the convenience of transferring Italian industrial plants to other countries, we have observed that in the last few months many opportunities have unexpectedly arisen in Italy which offer, in particular to foreign investors, extraordinarily interesting benefits.

For this reason, our Senior Partner, Prof. Enrico Santoro, is presently working on a book (to be published in English) which will be focusing on the Italian Government's new economic and financial policy which has brought about financial and tax benefits. In the result, companies operating in Italian territory may benefit from these new measures and may improve their competitiveness towards competitors operating in other countries. These benefits take the form of laws and special rulings, also arising in practice with their origins based on commercial and political considerations.

In this particular point in time, in the Italian economic context, foreign investors will find themselves in an advantaged and priviledged position when establishing an industrial plant in our country. This situation has been brought about by the particular economic and political phase which our country is going through, such as the loss of purchasing power of some 30 % compared to last year, due to circumstances directly linked with Italy's political instability.

These circumstances have represented an obstacle for the Italian entrepreneur, which has paralysed his own business activities by not investing in his own business and thereby taking advantage of the great opportunities for the Italian export market thanks to this change to his advantage.

Italian entrepreneurs, who have always maintained a traditional position regarding their direct control of their businesses without admitting outside shareholders into their companies, are presently disposed to sell out, sometimes even at very low prices. This is due to the fact that in Italy the "rules" are changing and evolving in conformity with those of other industrialised countries. However, while foreign businessmen already know them, Italian businessmen are still disorientated to a large extent.

We may affirm, somewhat definitely, that at the present time foreign businessmen may set up business activities in Italy at a reasonable cost, either because they can buy using a strong currency or because they find industrial networks which regard their entry as the solution of all their problems. They also may find businessmen who do not know how properly value their businesses and there-fore who will not unduly speculate when it comes to fixing a price.

To this already advantageous situation, we should add the fact that the Italian Government, in order to offset this operational uncertainty, has recently approved several incentives to promote employment by offering tax discounts to those companies hiring new staff as well as incentives to promote investment, which can result in reduction of production costs to unbeatable levels.

We should also observe that often it will not be possible to catch up on delays in developing infrastructures and providing public services by putting out public works to contract, the Italian economic situation not being in a position to face such enormous cost over a short period of time.

The only way-out for the Italian enterprises in all this confusion, as we see it, is by means of project financing, an instrument which is completely unknown to Italian businessmen. Project financing can give private companies the opportunity to develop infrastructure, followed by governmental concession to manage it privately for a certain period of time. Private companies having the experience to weigh up the economic profits that may result from cons-truction and exploitment of public works will be able to formulate offers to the Government that may certainly be profitable for them.

Such an instrument would be, in our opinion, the "big door" through which foreign investors may enter into the Italian market and be able to take advantage of the urgent necessity of catching up on delays in giving the country the infrastructures that other industrialised countries already have had for decades. Besides, given foreign companies' expertise in this field, they have exce-llent chances of being granted concessions by the Government authorities at a very profitable rate. It should be borne in mind that foreign companies will not have any local competitors as there are no Italian companies able to carry out similar projects.

For these reasons, we feel that qualified colleagues from all over the world who specialize in these matters would be pleased to be able to supply their own clients with information as well as constant and concise monitoring of the advantages arising from investing in Italy, so they will keep them in mind and compare the opportunities offered by Italy with those offered by other countries.