The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visits the 63rd Genoa International Boat Show

The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visits the 63rd Genoa International Boat Show © Confindustria Nautica

Cecchi: The presence of the Prime Minister demonstrates the value of our sector and the importance of the Genoa International Boat Show.

Bucci: We thank the government for supporting Liguria and Genoa. The success of the Genoa Boat Show is a result shared by entrepreneurs and industry operators.

Toti: With this visit of our Prime Minister, we are celebrating the Genoa International Boat Show, the yachting sector and Liguria's role in the blue economy.

Meloni: The government of this nation must give thanks to the work this sector has been able to represent and for the excellence it represents worldwide. We will listen to the needs and proposals of the various sectors that make up the marine economy, including the yachting industry and its need for simplification. Those who produce Italian excellence must only be thanked and defended.

Saverio Cecchi, President of the Italian Marine Industry Association: With your presence here today, Prime Minister, you have placed two important stamps demonstrating the quality of what we do. You have shown the value our sector represents: we are world leaders with a turnover of 7 billion and a supply chain that employs 200 thousand people. An export record of 88%, we have overtaken Holland, we are first in the world, ahead of France, Germany and the United States. The second stamp of approval is this splendid Genoa Boat Show and you, with your being here, certify the importance of our Show, something that is very important to us, a symbol of Italian know-how. Never, over the past 63 editions, had a government listened to such a degree. I have asked your Ministers a number of things, and I would also like to recall what you said during your visit to the Monza Circuit: "In this temple of speed we must learn to run, to run faster, to make our country run". We in the yachting industry, Prime Minister, are running fast but - as I said to your ministers - if you remove any grit and pave the track well, we will run even faster. I will ask just one final thing: at the next Council meeting, remind your Ministers of the promise you made to the President of the Italian Marine Industry Association at the Genoa International Boat Show."

Marco Bucci, Mayor of Genoa: "It has been so many years since we have had the opportunity to have the Prime Minister visit the Genoa International Boat Show, this is a clear sign for the future, not only for everyone, but especially for Liguria and Genoa, which are constantly growing and proudly carrying on the unique style and skills of Made in Italy know-how. I would like to thank the Government for granting us our funding. We are working to ensure that these means are used in the best possible way in order to increase our infrastructures. This is a success story that the Italian Marine Industry Association, the Genoa Boat Show, and the Ligurian people all hope will continue, born from a mindset that entrepreneurs and operators share in the results achieved by the Genoa Boat Show; a mindset that is always looking to the future of an industry that is charging at full steam ahead. I would like to thank the Government again for giving us the opportunity to move forward in an even more cohesive way towards the future."

Giovanni Toti, President of the Liguria Regional Council: "Today, with Prime Minister Meloni's visit, we interrupt a long absence of Italy's institutional leaders at the Genoa International Boat Show: the last prime minister to visit an edition of the Boat Show was Bettino Craxi in 1986. Today we celebrate a plethora of interconnected elements, starting from the event hosting us, which represents a sector that is itself in tremendously good health, achieving a 20% growth rate. The Boat Show did not even have the luxury livery of the new Foce district, which will soon become a flagship location of the Mediterranean. All this is the result of the synergy and hard work carried out by public administrations together with an entrepreneurial class that is among the best in the world, and I believe that this method should be an example for the future: a cooperation based on trust between the public and private sectors, each one with its own competences and responsibilities, but which are able to come together and build a path towards true growth, an approach that was not taken for granted in other times and that is instead the guiding thread of this Government's activity. Today we are also celebrating - concluded President Toti - Liguria's role in the blue economy: we are among the most important regions in the world for the yachting industry and we are working to become even more competitive, starting from that engineering jewel that is the new harbour dam, which will allow Genoa to compete with the international port giants."

Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of the Italian Republic: "It is not the yachting sector that should be thanking me for coming here today after a gap of 37 years since the last official visit of a Prime Minister to the Genoa International Boat Show. I should be the one thanking this industry, because when you have companies that are able to produce and showcase true Italian excellence, as the yachting sector has done successfully over these years, employing Italian workers, producing a supply chain that, as the President said, employs over 200 thousand workers in Italy, paying attention to our tradition, which is a tradition of Made in Italy excellence, producing 7 billion euros, which inevitably also flows into the coffers of the Italian State and makes up a large portion of the resources that the Italian State has to spend, I believe that it is the Government of this Nation that must come here and have the humility and responsibility to say thank you for the work that this sector has been able to represent and for the excellence that it has provided to the world. Let's be honest, there's a pride in taking first place, leaving everyone behind. This is something that should always make us proud. I also came here today because, as the President knows very well, this is a government that has wanted to focus a piece of its strategic choices precisely on the sea. Italy is a platform in the middle of the Mediterranean and we have often behaved as if we did not have this sea, as if we were a nation not surrounded by 8,000 kilometres of coastline. It is not just a matter of geographical positioning, although it has its role in geopolitical issues. I think we can see the role that Italy is trying to recover as a main player in the Mediterranean. But it is above all about economics. The sea is one of the most strategic infrastructures that Italy has and we cannot fail to have a strategy on how best to create a synergy between all the players operating across the marine economy. As you know, the Plan for the Sea was presented last week: there is a specific ministry that deals with this matter and it has brought together all the actors from throughout this sector. It sat them around a table, listened to the needs of those supply chains, collected the suggestions from companies operating in those sectors, formulated a strategy and wrote it down in the form of a Plan. Mr. President, there is no need for me to remind the ministers of the commitments they have made, because in the next Budget Law, we will have a link dedicated to the marine economy. In the annex we will gather the needs and proposals, which come from the various sectors including the yachting sector with its need for simplification. This is a sector that has often been the subject of demagoguery, it has, at times, been vilified. We need to break away from this way of thinking: those who produce Italian excellence must only be thanked and defended."