Speaking for the small Italian firms

“I love this country with all its problems, I love all the people,” wine merchant Alessandro Balli, an Italian businessman, a prominent member of the Italian community in Hungary told the Italian Focus in a recent issue of Diplomacy & Trade.

“Wine is a kind of love for me. It is normal as I am Toscano. The first time I drank wine was when I was 4-5 years old but I have never been drunk in my life. I daresay I don’t drink the wine, I taste it to feel and appreciate its characteristics. Fortunately, nowadays, a lot of people are aware that a glass of red wine a day, with omega-3 acid and antioxidants, is good for your heart,” Alessandro Balli says.

He is the owner of Balli Vini, a company importing Italian wines to Hungary. That is his main business now but he has been involved in a variety of other things in connection with Hungary for the past three decades. “I began to work with Hungary in 1985. I used to come to this country for hunting from 1979,” he recalls of the early years. “In the 1980s, I got to know a lady whom I married. We moved to Italy, but every year we came back to Hungary on business since I worked as a software programmer.” It was then that he began to import computers and parts. In 1988, he organized the expansion into Hungary of Magneti Marelli, the company famous for its spark plugs.

In 2005, an Italian restaurant in Budapest, Pomo D’oro asked him to import wine for them from Italy. Because of the bureaucracy in Hungary, it is not easy to import wine to this country. But, Alessandro Balli has spent enough time here to cope with the problem. He says the producers and suppliers have become his friends. “The first contact is always commercial but later on, the producers also need friend-to-friend information on what the market expectations are. It is common in the countries of East Central Europe that people tend to like sweet or semi-sweet wines, especially of red varieties. Therefore, it is important to buy wines with sweet characteristics. During these times of crisis, restaurants come and go only the best can survive.”

As an Italian businessman with extensive knowledge of Hungary, he was asked in the late 1990s by several small Italian enterprises in this country to form an interest representation organization. Initially, it was formed as the ‘Libera Associazione Piccoli Imprese Ungheresi a Partecipazione Italiana’ (Free Association of Small Hungarian Businesses with Italian Participation). It was registered in court in 1998 with about one hundred members. Balli says “the need arose because small enterprises could not have their voices heard on their own while an association has the proper weight. At the same time, they felt that the Italian Chamber could not properly represent their interests.”

Membership fell significantly as the world economic crisis hit but the association, now called Associazione di Imprese per lo Sviluppo Italo-Ungherese (Association of Companies for Italo-Hungarian Development) still has about 30 members. Its main goals are to encourage the development of business by seeking cooperation with political and social institutions and business organizations both in Hungary and Italy; represent and protect the interests of the member companies; as well as take effective measures to strengthen solidarity and constructive cooperation between entrepreneurs.

Regarding the investment environment in Hungary, the words of Alessandro Balli, who is a trained economist, seem to mirror the views of the IMF and the European Union as he says it is the high level of taxes and of the bureaucracy as well as the lack of predictability and stability in legislation that are hindering the development of the economy and cause problems to the investors. “The Hungarian government must build a trustworthy but properly controlled environment, a system where the market players are consulted.“