The Maghreb Area Development. Threats and Opportunities for Italian Companies’ Investment Strategies.

The current highly competitive international scenario is characterised by increasingly keen players (Chinese in particular) gaining significant shares in the western markets, so as to induce companies in the most industrialised countries to invest in emerging areas (Maghreb for example), thus reducing management costs relating to raw materials, capital, energy, as well as labour, in order to preserve their competitiveness. In particular, the choice of international operators, above all the Italian ones, seems to fall, on Morocco and Tunisia both for their geographical proximity and a better business climate compared to the neighbouring countries. However, following the Arab Spring, the Italian leadership and the main EU operators seem to have been challenged by the Gulf countries, that, through massive direct investments, have gained significant market shares in the area. Thus, the research, moving from the current competitive scenario, intends to investigate, first of all, the reasons for the increased interest in the area by the Gulf Countries and the sectors they are investing in, to understand which are the best strategic choices to be adopted by Western companies (primarily Italian) in a rapidly changing competitive environment, even in the light of the political, social and operational choices made by local governments. The analysis of macroeconomic data and the current business climate will highlight the fairness of the governmental choices implemented. Moreover, through a questionnaire submitted to the main Italian operators in the area, it will allow careful examination of their difficulties in doing business over the last five years.