Alexander Braca 
ROME «We have invested in the conversion of the Tetra Pak industrial site, reabsorbing all 100 of its employees. Now 270 people work here, but we have planned new hirings in the next two years, and when fully operational we will reach 370 employees. We produce new technology oncology drugs for third party, only for overseas USA and Japan. Our turnover last year reached 30 million and this year we expect to grow by 20%». It is not just a story of entrepreneurial success in times of crisis, the one told by Alessandro Braca, head of business development and member of the board of Bsp Pharmaceuticals of Latina - a company led by his father Aldo, former CEO of Bristol Italy - - who transformed a plant that made food packaging into one that produces life-saving medicines with very high added value. It is also an emblematic story that speaks of Latina's now endemic vocation for pharmaceuticals which drives the local economy, albeit "induced", when in the 1970s the policies of the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno attracted the large multinationals of the sector to the area. A sector that continues to act as a driving force for the province, recording double-digit growth in exports: 2.2 billion the value of sales abroad in 2011 (46.8% for all of Lazio) with growth of over 18% and 585.8 million in the first three months of 2012 (+20.4%). And that despite the transformations induced by the crisis (some big names such as Bristol and Pfizer have sold their sites), it can count on the presence of giants such as Recordati and Janssen-Cilag of the Jhonson&Jhonson group which has one of the six European plants here.
If pharmaceuticals have a significant weight on the added value of 12 billion produced by the province, the second in the region after Rome, the production fabric as a whole shows a certain liveliness. According to the Latina Chamber of Commerce, there are over 5,700 companies with a growth rate of 1.2% in 2011, much higher than the national average (0.82%), and of 0.70% in the second quarter of this year. Even if the suffering caused by the crisis emerges from the negative data on the labor market: unemployment rate at 10%, and in the first six months of 2012 the hours of Cig increased by almost 30% on the year.
The local economy is also strengthened by focusing on business networks, especially in other leading sectors. «In addition to the pharmaceuticals - explains Paolo Marini, president of Confindustria Latina - the other important realities for our economy are the "light" engineering industry, and the agri-food sector». In the engineering sector last year the growth of exports came close to 17%. «There are around 120 companies in the sector – continues Marini – with a total turnover of around 500 million euros. We focus a lot on online aggregations because here, compared to pharmaceutical chemists, the fabric is characterized by much smaller companies that excel in their production, but are quite isolated from the context. They do robotic automation.
