This work aims to provide an overview of the various sectors of Manufacturing in Italy, highlighting the main factors of strengths and weaknesses on the basis of a structured Database elaborated recently by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). In particular, the research has pointed out the various structural aspects of each sector, the cooperation, internationalization and innovation strategies; from the analysis it seems to have emerged a widespread effort of a large part of the Italian firms - in the more recent years - finalized at strengthening the internationalization and innovation policies. In the conclusions, the analysis tries to develop some reflections on the high informative capacity and on some limits of ISTAT Database and, more generally, on the role that should be assumed by the industrial policy in order to contribute to a strong and sustained economic growth.
Keywords: Manufacturing, innovation and internationalization strategies, industrial policy
Jel Code: L25, L52, L60