Boom of food, so the Bangla took Rome – Il Tempo
Not even the trade crisis caused by the pandemic has stopped the expansion of Bengali-run convenience stores in the capital. A phenomenon that has something inexplicable. While Italian-owned foodstuffs have been decimated, around 200 have closed shops in two years – those of those born in Bangladesh have even grown. According to data from the Rome Chamber of Commerce, in 2019 (i.e. before Covid) there were 871; at the end of 2020, after two waves of infections, they increased by 134 units, reaching 1,005; finally, in the third quarter of 2021 there was a further increase of 87 units, for a total of 1,092 convenience stores currently active in the capital. From the beginning of the health emergency to today, therefore, there are 221 food stores managed by more Bangladeshis. On the other hand, it is enough to turn around the city to have a visual comparison to the numbers: in the same street you can find shops of the same type side by side, often empty and without customers; for example in via di Valle Melaina, which is not part of the nightlife areas, there are 3 of them in about 500 meters. The opening hours – more flexible, extended or at night – facilitate them but are not sufficient to explain this trend.
The “litmus test”, in fact, took place during the lockdown, when all the establishments for the sale of food products were consumed at the same time, including Bengalis. Yet the latter have not been affected by the restrictions. The other foreign owners weren’t as lucky: from December 2020 to last September they granted the 43 minimarket shutter forever. If the spectrum is then extended to include all foreign companies registered in Rome (joint stock companies, partnerships and individuals), 2,897 disappeared in the same time period. The situation worsens if we consider the food managed by Italians: in 2019 there were 1,038; in 2020 they dropped to 956 (-7.9% compared to 2019); in the third quarter of 2021 they further decreased to 842 units (-11.9% compared to the same period of the previous year). At the moment, therefore, this kind of commercial activity sees the predominant presence of foreigners, equal to 62.2%, of which 57.9% consists of owners born outside the European Union. The Italians who own or manage a grocery store in Rome are counted, since they represent only 36.1% of this slice of the market. But what activities do the Bengalis generally carry out in the capital? Again according to the data of the Chamber of Commerce, most of them – 45% – are dedicated to wholesale and retail trade, to the repair of motor vehicles and motor vehicles; 28% to rental, travel agencies and business support services; 7.2% to construction.
In particular, in the overall decline in the number of greengrocers managed by foreigners, from 2019 to the third quarter of 2021, the Bangladeshi who have closed the shop are only 26 and still represent just over a quarter of the total number of foreign greengrocers. Covid did not affect the number of Bangladeshi florists (which remained unchanged); while the street vendors of this nationality decrease in all categories: clothing, drinks and food. In general, there are 172,401 individual businesses in Rome, of which 72.2% see an Italian as owner and 26.9% a foreigner. So one out of 4 individual businesses in Rome is foreign and one out of 5 is non-EU foreigners. Among these, the Bengalis have the lion’s share: almost a third of the individual enterprises managed by citizens born outside the EU are in fact in their hands (11,914 out of 36,158). There is another interesting fact in this scenario: the names of the Bengali entrepreneurs themselves often occur in more than one commercial activity (including minimarkets, greengrocers, florists and itinerant sellers). For example, Ashraf Mahammod holds 5 positions in 5 different companies; another 6 Bengali entrepreneurs each hold 4 positions; 22 entrepreneurs hold 3 each and 172 have 2 different positions.