The government has allocated 80 million euros to support freight transport companies, in order to offset part of the higher costs incurred for the purchase of liquefied natural gas and the additive, as well as for undocumented expenses and motorway tolls.
Confartigianato Trasporti Sardegna takes the opportunity to recall "how the sector is increasingly crushed by the escalation of the cost of diesel fuel, which has risen by 22.3% in the last year, with an impact of higher costs equal to 535 million euros for micro and small companies in road haulage ".
"A blow - adds the association - which is entirely discharged on profit margins and company added value, considering that producer prices in freight transport, in the third quarter of 2021, are down by 1.2% compared to a year before ".
The sector also in Sardinia is in "constant imbalance between deflating turnover, on the one hand, and diesel, tolls, insurance, operating costs and taxes that are growing, on the other". Furthermore, everything is aggravated by the infrastructural deficit, "which will be filled in a very long time", and by "unfair internal and foreign competition that operates without rules and prices below cost", without neglecting "payments, especially between private individuals, with non-quantifiable times, and businesses, almost half a third of the total in Italy (35 thousand out of 92 thousand), not in compliance with the obligations established by law for those who want to carry out the profession ". To be added to the already critical situation, "local variables such as inadequate viability, or roads that open and close according to weather conditions or hydrogeological instability, the ZTL established from morning to evening, and urban stalls, for loading and unloading, have now become a real rarity. And, last but not least, Covid for 2 years now ".
"For these reasons - underline the artisan road hauliers - we believe it is essential that we arrive at the definition of rules that will have to guarantee greater and effective protection of road haulage companies, with particular reference to the regulation of a clause for the adjustment of transport costs to the cost of diesel. , as well as the question of stops and the application of the new European regulation ". “The dialogue with the Government - concludes Confartigianato Trasporti Sardegna - aims to define the rules necessary for the category to obtain a rebalancing of the market structures and the correct corrections of contractual conditions”.
Based on the most recent analyzes by the Research Department of Confartigianato Imprese Sardegna, the dynamics of the price of diesel fuel in mid-February grew by 22.3% on an annual basis. On the island, the 2,476 road haulage companies, of which about 1,500 are artisans, have transported over 14 million tons, 87% of all the goods that are handled on the territory. A sector that creates jobs for over 7,000 people, with an average size per company of 2.8 employees for each reality.
