Why now more than ever do we need an industrial policy?

The paper analyses the situation of the Italian manufacturing sector before the devastating effect of Covid-19. In a first moment, the focus lies on the macroeconomic elements and on the general framework. Successively the attention lies on the sectors that pushes the Italian economy, in order to identify the more effective strategies to promote a fair and sustainable growth, according to the priorities identified by the European Commission ecological transition, digitalization and welfare. From the analysis, Italy seems to be characterized by excellent sectors that present highly differentiated level of technological contents, so they need diversified policy industrial measures and differentiated financial supports. We try to suggest two potential lines of interventions: the first one for the most competitive sectors and the second one for all the firms, regardless of sectors. Interventions that have to be monitored, during the time, in order to face the actual environmental and technological transformations according to the pandemia’s evolution. Finally, we analyse how the Recovery and Resilience Plan will address the industrial policy and whether the plan is consistent with the lines of action suggestedby our analysis.