The financial economic crisis that hit the whole world is manifesting in its virulence: every country, excluding no one, is looking to find the right remedies to what none of the economists and financial experts predicted. For many companies, the crisis manifests with the drop of orders from which the necessity to reduce production derived, the difficulty to maintain the number of employees, the requests of the masses that are laid-off on the employees' side, mobility or unemployment, and the reduction of spending from families. From all of this follows the necessity, on the part of governors from various countries, to find solutions to help the sectors that have been hit the most from problems in which the mass media has been talking about for several months now. Without us wanting to fall in analysis' that we leave to the experts, we look to make some observations on the sector in which all of us are involved, that of automobile and auto repair.

We can say that:
- as production support vertically dropped in the last year, all of the car manufacturers received substantial help from the government of respective countries to help with the production and sales of new cars, in particular in favour of vehicles with less impact on the environment;
- consequently, we are assisting the umpteenth scrapping action of more out-dated automobiles that were constituting the core of the independent auto repair business. The workshops need to renounce a very important piece of their sales;                                                                                                                - the number of new registered cars will certainly favour the manufacturer workshops that, in regards to maintenance programs for the warrantee period, will be favoured compared to the independent workshops whom, until today, knew how to profit from this important opportunity;
- not to underestimate the reduced economic availability of families at purchases planned for auto reparation with the resulting difficulty, on the part of the independent auto repairer, to cash in on the sales to clients.

So what does the auto repairer have to do then?
The first thing to say is that, paradoxically, the moments of difficulty like this can help companies better themselves, to organise themselves, to undertake structural innovations that, in moments of tranquility, are difficult to think about putting into action; in other words, this economic crisis will initiate a lot of action but will also make craftsmen and commercial realities stronger.
Fear of the economic downturn is reasonable and natural because it reminds us that the spirit of an entrepreneurial economy is always lowered to insecurities and risks; the economic scare, on the contrary, is only useless and dangerous.

Going back to the discussion started at the January 29th Meeting, we would like to reaffirm that Zago Ltd. will be, even more than in the past, on the side of those clients that want to give a turning point to their businesses, to dedicate more time to their professional growth (training courses, see page 11), to their necessity to compete with the workshops joined with the automobile manufacturers supplying their original or corresponding parts (45,000 pieces constantly available in the warehouse), a wide range of tools necessary to substitute those that are obsolete, a precise and fast delivery service, and a team of people always available to assist them in their daily needs.
A particular factor comes with the "consumation credit" service of which our company spoke about in the recent Meeting with the workshop; because of the difficulty to promptly collect what is due from the work (difficulty that has been accentuated lately), the proposal to offer all of you the possibility to leave the duties to guarantee immediate collection of the relative amount of an intervention to a specialised business seems interesting to us; all of this done in a simple and secure way and with valuable support from our sales representatives.
The innovations, to be clear, don't have to only regard your workshops but also the part distribution companies like ours; it is for this reason that Zago Ltd., carrying on its program of continued modernization, has the pleasure to announce to all of you the settlement of an important collaboration agreement with Emergas of Brescia, a business leader in the sector of production of Gpl and Methane gas systems, of which you will find a wide documentation in the inner pages. We would like to underline the fact that gas systems don't only signify "installation of new systems" but also and, above all, "maintenance of existing systems": for those who know how to take advantage of the opportunity, this can certainly transform into a new business matter.