Milan: Ignazio Cassis wants an axis of innovation

The Greater Zurich Area looks to Italy to attract innovative companies from there. Federal President Cassis and Ticino play an important role in this.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio (right) with Federal President Ignazio Cassis at the inauguration of the “House of Switzerland” in Milan on Friday (April 29).

Daniel DalZennaro/EPA

Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis always likes to come to Ticino. And especially as Federal President, he tries to hold important events for Switzerland in his home canton. One example is the major Ukraine reform conference scheduled for July in Lugano. Because of the war, it must now take place in a modest form.

The small “innovation journey” that Cassis completed on Friday is likely to be no less important for Switzerland. This started in the Zurich Innovation Park in Dübendorf and led via the Ticino Technopark at Manno to the “House of Switzerland” in Milan. The latter is a temporary meeting place where innovative business people from Switzerland and Italy can deepen their contacts until mid-June.

Networking the two innovation areas Greater Zurich Area and Lombardy: This is an important goal, explained the Federal President during the stopover in the southern canton, flanked by senior officials from Zurich and Ticino. In this way, Switzerland can hold its own better than international competition when it comes to innovation.

Ministerial meeting in Milan

Founded in 1999, the Greater Zurich Area (GZA) is more than just the Canton of Zurich’s location marketing organization. It covers the entire Zurich economic area, and also includes Zug, Schwyz, Uri, Graubünden, Glarus, Schaffhausen, Solothurn – and since 2019 Ticino. Thus, one can speak of a north-south axis of innovation.

Cassis wants to extend it to Milan. So on Friday evening he met Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Innovation Minister Vittorio Colao in the “House of Switzerland”. Aspects such as the continuation of Switzerland’s bilateral path with the EU and the negotiation package proposed by the Federal Council were also discussed. Cassis’ department did not share any details.

The Greater Zurich Area has a lot of wind in its sails at the moment. The shock caused by the lockdown in spring 2020 was surprisingly well survived, said the GZA Foundation Council President and Zurich Economics Director Carmen Walker Späh on request. According to her, there was an economic and innovative need to catch up, which led to a number of companies settling in the GZA cantons.

Last year, 125 companies settled there, resulting in the creation of about 580 new jobs, even surpassing pre-pandemic levels. 15 of these companies chose Ticino as their location, and not just Italian companies.

Swiss window to Italy

The merger of the Zurich and Ticino innovation areas creates more dynamism than you would think. According to an EU study from 2021, both cantons are among the ten most progressive regions in Europe. Ticino is particularly strong in the areas of life sciences, mechatronics, drone technology and artificial intelligence, as State Councilor Christian Vitta emphasized in Manno.

With regard to northern Italy, Ticino plays an important role. The Milan metropolitan area is one of the most dynamic economic areas in Europe, and the southern canton is geographically and culturally part of it. So Ticino can mediate between Zurich and Milan, on a practical level. It’s Switzerland’s window into Italy and the Mediterranean, and that’s what different companies need, Vitta said.

The Greater Zurich Area also looks out onto Lombardy through this same window. According to Balz Hösly, President of the GZA Board of Directors, she is currently in contact with 54 Italian companies that are planning locations in Switzerland and other German-speaking countries. And because the Italian-speaking Ticino is involved in these negotiations, the chances are very good for some of them.

Ticino knows the economic area north of the Gotthard and proves to be the ideal first port of call. This should pay off, even if the majority of the Italian companies concerned do not open a branch in the southern canton themselves. Hösly is convinced that Ticino will benefit from later contracts being awarded to suppliers located here in its four most innovative economic sectors.

Pilatus-Werke present in Ticino

There are also companies from the north that open a branch in southern Switzerland. One of them is the aircraft manufacturer Pilatus from Central Switzerland: It is difficult to attract enough skilled workers to Stans, said Igor Medici, who is responsible for new projects at the Pilatus works.

Medici has therefore opened an office in Ticino to recruit aviation specialists locally and from northern Italy. Pilatus also wants to develop new technologies for aircraft construction with the help of the Supsi technical college in Ticino. This is another enrichment for the southern canton.

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