SACE 2021 Risk Map: risks and sustainable recovery for Italian exports in 2021

March 2, 2021

SACE presented the 2021 Risk Map, an essential tool in helping Italian enterprises, especially small and medium-sized ones, to sensibly orient themselves when investing in international markets. The report will highlight the complications arising from the extreme scenario-changing events of 2020, a year in which the sudden worldwide health crisis had an inevitable domino effect on both the economy (it caused the deepest global recession in the last 80 years) and politics, sometimes exacerbating already critical situations and increasing the levels of credit and political risks. But 2021 will be a year of transition towards recovery, thanks to progress in fighting the virus, driven by resilience factors and a new focus on sustainability as an integral part of corporate competitiveness strategies.

Thus, this year’s report has been enriched, as a result of the partnership with Enel Foundation, with new sustainability indicators developed together by the two organizations: Climate change, equitable wealth distribution and energy transition. 

The climate change risk indicator monitors the main climatic risks (e.g., high temperatures, hydrogeological fragility, and wind) and the related socio-environmental impacts. Of the other two fields of analysis, equitable wealth distribution further analyses demographics, equality, the level of health, education, and work, following the approach of Equitable and Sustainable Well-being (BES) utilized by Istat; the second, energy transition, measures the progress and geopolitical effects of the conversion to a new energy mix, as a resilience factor, in a context characterized by the fall in the price of oil, and the rise of renewable resources and electricity grids.

In this respect, the positioning of Europe stands out, but also of Latin America, with a strong presence of renewable generation in countries such as Chile, Peru, and Brazil, the latter ranked first among members of the G20, and with the best results on renewables. In Africa, Kenya is well positioned in the Sub-Saharan region.

In terms of energy efficiency, western industrialized countries certainly boast the best positioning - with Italy and Germany just outside the top 10 group - followed by the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

India and China are among the least performing in efficiency, and so are the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. European countries and Asian countries, such as Japan, South Korea, China, and Vietnam, dominate the electricity consumption ranking. Latin America is poorly positioned, with the exception of Chile, as well as Sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of South Africa and small island countries such as Seychelles and Mauritius.

The presentation was opened by Rodolfo Errore, SACE President, followed by Alessandro Terzulli, SACE Chief Economist, who presented the report, and a one-on-one interview with our Managing Director, Carlo Papa. Other guests, among which Francesco Venturini, Enel X CEO, will also debated export, and sustainability as a new approach to competitiveness.

Click here to download the report and here to read the article on Il Sole 24 Ore.