Rome, 24 Feb. (AKI) - The number of immigrant entrepreneurs is growing rapidly in Italy and they are making a significant contribution to the country's growth and international development. That was the finding of several speakers who met in Rome on Tuesday as Italian Catholic aid groups, Caritas and Migrantes, presented the country's first-ever report on the phenomenon.

"An important change is the number of immigrants who have set up their own businesses after working as employees for a number of years," said the coordinator of the immigration report, Antonio Riccio.

Data from the Caritas-Migrantes dossier fed into the new 'Immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy' report, published with the Ethnoland Foundation.

"There are now 165,000 immigrants who own a company in Italy and the number is rising. This is a source of development for Italy and for immigrants' countries of origin," Riccio said.

The number of immigrant-owned firms has tripled since 2003 and is growing at a rate of around 20,000 per year - while the number of Italian-owned firms is declining.

Using data from the Bank of Italy, Riccio said immigrants now contribute 9.2 percent of Italy's gross domestic product and the remittances they send back to their countries reached 6 billion euros in 2007.

For the Ethnoland Foundation's president Otto Bitjoka, the fact that immigrants produce almost 10 percent of Italy's GDP makes research on immigrant entrepreneurs "obligatory".

"Immigrants have the same problems as other entrepreneurs, especially access to credit and training - without which there can be no growth," Bitjoka stated.

The Ethnoland foundation was set up to give immigrants information on available business tools, to encourage entrepreneurship and to inform Italians, especially Italian trade associations and banks about them.

Most of the 83,578 immigrant-owned Italian companies currently operate in the industrial sector, and 65,549 are mainly Eastern European-owned building firms.

A total 77,515 entrepreneurs operate in services and 10,470 in the clothing, shoes and footwear sector, most of whom are Chinese.

Immigrant-owned firms generate employment for a total 500,000 people, a significant figure in the current economic recession, where joblessness is predicted to reach 8.2 percent this year.

Between 2003 and 2008, the number of companies owned by Romanian immigrants increased the most (61.2 percent), followed by Albanians (48.5 percent), Tunisians and Bangladeshis (38.5 and 38.0 percent respectively), Egyptians (32.2 percent) and Moroccans (27.4 percent).

The great majority of Moroccan entrepreneurs in Italy own trading companies, while Romanians and Albanians own building firms, and Chinese own manufacturing and trading businesses, according to the report.

The northeastern region of Lombardy has the greatest number of immigrant company-owners (30,000), followed by the centre-northern Emilia Romagna region (20,000), and the northern Piemonte and Veneto regions and central Lazio and Tuscany regions (with 15,000 each).

The concentration of immigrant entrepreneurs varies considerably from one region to another. The province of Milan and the province of Rome are those hosting the highest number (17,297 and 15,490 respectively), followed by the province of Turin (11,662).

Of the nearly 3.5 million foreigners who are legal residents in Italy, one in 21 is currently an entrepreneur, compared with one in ten Italians.

With the right assistance, the number of immigrant-owned companies in Italy could reach 365,000 employing over a million people, according to the Ethnoland Foundation.

Immigrant craftsmen (63,646) and female-owned businesses (27,000) are areas where there is particular potential for growth, Ethnoland noted.

Matilde Di Venere, the head of the Italian artisan association, Confartigianato's Europe section said immigrant entrepreneurs were following in the footsteps of Italian small businesses of the 1960s and 1970s and said they were encountering similar problems.

"We are witnessing a very important phenomenon that needs to be monitored and met with policies and services," Di Venere said.

"It is also a sign of integration in Italy because it means a network of contacts with institutions and the local community."

Cumbersome Italian bureaucracy and poor legal knowledge, problems in obtaining and renewing permits of stay, non-recognition of academic and professional qualifications and access to credit are the main obstacles immigrant entrepreneurs face.

Di Venere and other speakers called for measures to help entrepreneurs who are among immigrants that have chosen "the legal route" especially as they are among the most vulnerable in a period of global recession and shrinking employment.

Italy's Banking Association (ABI) is currently working to give immigrant entrepreneurs greater access to credit and take account of their evolving needs, in partnership with banks, firms and trade associations.

According to an ABI study, around 70 percent of immigrant entrepreneurs in Italy had banking facilities in 2006 and the figure has risen 12 percent in the past two years, the conference was told.