“I can honestly say that since I took over as Minister for Labour on the 16th November last year, today is the first day I feel good! Let me thank you for your invitation, therefore, and for offering me this chance to take part in a truly encouraging event that signifies new prospects for Italy. Businesses like TEXA are valuable benchmarks for economic recovery and act as sensors for social change and public confidence too. This is because businesses like TEXA have the courage not to leave in difficult times, to stay and to build for the future.” These encouraging words came from of Italy’s Minister for Labour and Social Policy, Elsa Fornero, a guest of honour at the ceremony to inaugurate TEXA’s new production plant on Saturday 29th September.

In addition to the Minister, other important guests at the inauguration of the new plant included Senators Maurizio Castro, Tiziano Treu, Maurizio Fistarol, Deputies Giustina Mistrello Destro and Simonetta Rubinato, the Regional Council’s Director of Social Policy Remo Sernagiotto, the Regional Council’s Director of Education, Training and Labour Policy Elena Donazzan, the Chairman of the Treviso Provincial Council Leonardo Muraro, the Mayor of Treviso Giampaolo Gobbo, and the Veneto Regional Council’s Secretary General for Planning Tiziano Baggio. Also present were Alessandro Vardanega and Luigi Brugnaro, Chairmen of the Treviso branch of Unindustria and the Venice branch of Confindustria respectively, and VIP guests from the world of industry and finance, including Franco Antiga, Gilberto Benetton, Stefano Beraldo, Alberto Bombassei, Lauro Buoro, Vincenzo Consoli, Giovanni Costa, Giuseppe De’ Longhi, Stefano Dolcetta, Riccardo Donadon, Giovanni Gajo, Riccardo Illy, Paolo Menuzzo, Bruno Zago and Federico Zoppas. Chairman of the Veneto Regional Council Luca Zaia was prevented from attending by prior political engagements, but contributed a video message in which he extended his congratulations to Bruno Vianello for TEXA’s magnificent achievement.

TEXA is one of the world’s leading players in vehicle diagnostics. Its new plant combines innovative and highly efficient manufacturing systems with a unique working environment that includes an old-style village, complete with coffee shop, restaurant, museum, theatre, and games room. In short, the new complex provides everything that is needed to work with confidence, creativity and faith in the future. TEXA currently employs a workforce of 455 people, with an average age of 30.

TEXA has an extensive network of distributors around the world as well as direct subsidiaries in Spain, France, the U.K., Germany, Poland, Russia, Japan and the United States. All TEXA products are rigorously engineered, prototyped and made in Italy, because Italian manufacturing, guaranteed by the strictest quality control criteria, is another of the company’s inspiring principles.

TEXA has invested a total of 50 million Euros in the construction of its new plant. The complex covers 104,000 square metres of land, and occupies over 30,000 square metres of indoor space. Its construction required 15,000 cubic metres of reinforced concrete, 2,000 square metres of glass façade, 2 million kilograms of steel, and 943 kilometres of cable.

The following declarations were made by the day’s key protagonists:
Bruno Vianello, President of TEXA: “We are inaugurating this new plant in a time of great political and economic uncertainty that we could not possibly have foreseen five years ago when we laid the first stone. At this moment in time we feel like a racing driver forced to drive at a constant slow speed behind a safety car. We cannot wait for the safety car to be recalled to the paddock, because our TEXA car really is set up to win the race. We’ve got a full tank, the right tyres and a powerful engine, and we’re eager to take the lead and put a healthy distance between us and our competitors. As businessmen, Manuele Cavalli and I both believe that we have done our duty to the full, in business and ethical terms, by continuing to invest in Italy even though it would have been extremely easy for us to delocalise, given the type of product we make. I am referring not only to the construction of this new production plant, but to the fact that TEXA continues to take on young people and to complement their scholastic education with internal training courses.”

Leonardo Muraro, Chairman of the Treviso Provincial Council: “Our council is committed to helping businesses like TEXA, who believe in this area, by cutting red tape and working together to overcome the obstacles and the restrictions that the unions and the European Community sometimes place in our way, and that hamper business initiatives. Bruno Vianello and Manuele Cavalli are not just great entrepreneurs: they are public spirited men too, because in this new complex they have given their employees a fantastic working environment and a place where they really can feel part of a family.

Alessandro Vardanega, Chairman of the Treviso branch of Unindustria: “Today is a really great day, not only for TEXA but for the Treviso and Veneto area as a whole. Bruno Vianello firmly believes that strong local roots and a local workforce contribute to success in business, and is willing to invest in them. It is worth remembering that in 2011 TEXA won Treviso Unindustria’s ‘Young Employment’ award for having taken on a large number of young people and offered them a secure future and the chance to start families of their own.”

Alberto Bombassei, C.E.O. of Brembo: “I am extremely proud to learn that Bruno Vianello sees me as an example to follow in the field of industrial quality and innovation. He is absolutely right when he says that a country without industry is both poor and weak. Italy is currently the second largest manufacturing nation in Europe. Despite this, our manufacturing system needs to evolve further in the direction of higher added value, and to do this it needs to employ highly qualified personnel and focus on technical innovation. The current crisis is forcing Italian industry to become better organised and more export oriented.”