Not just Portovesme: high energy costs put 95,000 small and medium-sized Sardinian businesses at risk
Costs more than doubled in one year, while the incidence of bills on company balance sheets has risen from 15 to 28%
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That of Portovesme with its 1,300 workers is only the most striking case, both for the number of people involved and for the sensational protest staged in recent days by the four workers who climbed the chimney .
But the devastating effects of high energy costs do not only affect industrial poles, for a year and a half they have been bringing fragile and defenseless small businesses to their knees.
According to the most recent data from the study office of Confartigianato Sardinia, due to high bills today about 95 thousand micro and small Sardinian businesses are under attack , mostly with fewer than 10 employees. In 2022, SMEs recorded an increase of 850 million euros with expenses more than doubling in one year (+147.1%, against a national average of +135%).
An increase destined to last at least until next summer. The average incidence of electricity and gas bills on company financial statements has in fact doubled, going from 15.8 to 28.1% .
A tunnel from which you can't see the exit, which causes a liquidity crisis that threatens to put a large portion of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises on the island out of the market.
« The cost of energy must be blocked, or at least controlled, both for highly energy-intensive companies, to make them competitive, and for small ones , so that they can absorb fluctuations in the energy market in the best possible way - say Mereu, Orrù and Spada of Confartigianato South Sardinia - without forgetting families , reducing, as a first step, the weight of the tax component on the electricity bill".
(Unioneonline/L)
