Privatization in Italy: Roundtable Discussion with Paolo Savona the Italian Minister of Industry

Over the last few years, the Italian government has intensified its privatization program of state-owned industries. Since 1989, it has privatized the banking and food industries and will begin work on the telecom and insurance industries in late 1994. Paolo Savona, the Minister of Industry, has been in part responsible for these reforms. In his comments to the Italian Academy of Advanced Studies at Columbia University, he outlines the constitutional and cultural difficulties that Italy has faced in its privatization program, and asserts that through reducing the public debt, improving efficiency, and enlarging capital and other markets, the Italian economy will be better prepared for the 21st Century.