Ministry of Economic Development (Italy)

The Ministry of Economic Development (Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico or MSE) is a government ministry of the Italian Republic. It deals with production, economic activities, energy and mineral resources, telecommunications, consumers, tourism, internationalisation and business incentives. It is headed by the Italian Minister of Economic Development, who is currently assigned to Carlo Calenda. It was set up in the second Prodi cabinet, in 2006, from the former Ministry of Productive Activities, which had already absorbed the portfolio of the Department of Cohesion and Development (previously under the Ministry of Economy and Finance). In its turn the Ministry of Productive Activities subsumed the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Artisanship, the Ministry of Communications (which in 2001, in the second Berlusconi cabinet, evaded being subsumed) and the Ministry of Foreign Trade. According to the 2008 budget, law 244/2007, in the second Prodi cabinet, it was decided to restore the Bassanini reforms of law 300/1999, thus merging the Ministry of Communications and Ministry of International Commerce. This provision was implemented by the fourth Berlusconi cabinet in 2008.