Italy's firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law

The government last week extended non-essential business closures to May 3. But more than 100,000 mainly small- and medium-sized companies have applied to keep going or partially reopen.In principle, a key hurdle for companies to do business should be that they can prove they are part of a supply chain to businesses that are deemed"essential" in a government decree, such as food, energy or pharmaceutical companies.

So unless companies have been told they are not critical, all they need to do is to inform their local authority that they plan to reopen. Then, without waiting for an answer, they can go ahead. The government will carry out inspections to make sure companies are not cheating the system, a spokesperson for the interior ministry told Reuters.

Its chief executive, Filippo Gasparini, told Reuters the company last week had sent a certified email to the Venice local authority or prefect, specifying the names of relevant clients and their sector of activity and saying it intended to resume supplies to them.A staff meeting is conducted in a factory of roll-forming machine maker Gasparini, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak, in Mirano near Venice, Italy April 15, 2020.

An official at the Venice prefect's office said there had been a large number of applications so it was not immediately possible to provide information about a specific company. Last week, concerns that the disease could ravage Italy's poorer south, or afflict a new wave, led Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to resist industrialists' pressure to ease restrictions.

Home to the likes of Prada , Armani and Moncler , Italy is second only to France among European countries for fashion and luxury goods sales. On Thursday, fashion lobby Confindustria Moda said it had signed an accord with unions over safety procedures to restart activity, when the government agrees.

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