Editor's Note
This editor’s note highlights the key facts and market implications behind “Ceramic District ZLS: Panunzi Calls for Expansio”, with emphasis on sourcing, product fit, fabrication, logistics, or buyer impact.
The Civita Castellana ceramic district risks being left incomplete. The Simplified Logistics Zone (ZLS), the tool that offers companies less bureaucracy and tax incentives, currently covers only part of the production area, excluding several municipalities that represent a significant portion of the sector. To resolve this imbalance, which has also been highlighted by leading industry players, regional councilor Enrico Panunzi has submitted a formal inquiry to the regional government (the Pisana). The councilor's request is to revise the current map to include all the territories that, together with Civita Castellana and Orte, have always constituted the most important industrial hub in the area.
The District in Focus
“The Civita Castellana ceramic district,” according to Panunzi, “is a reality far broader than just municipal boundaries. For this reason, I am asking for a revision of the perimeter to fully recognize its unity. We are talking about a production reality of national and international importance, characterized by a widespread, integrated, and interdependent supply chain that is not confined to the administrative borders of Civita Castellana and Orte—the only municipalities currently within the ZLS along with Tarquinia and Viterbo—but involves a broader territorial system that also includes Castel Sant’Elia, Fabrica di Roma, Gallese, Corchiano, Nepi, Faleria, and Sant’Oreste. Limiting the ZLS to a portion of this system means failing to recognize the actual productive articulation of the district.”
The Criticisms of the Current System
The regional councilor continued:
“A partial perimeter risks compromising the principle of equal treatment between companies belonging to the same supply chain, generating competitive distortions, locational imbalances, and possible displacement effects. The simplification tools and incentives linked to the ZLS, if applied incompletely, end up favoring some territories to the detriment of others that are part of the same productive ecosystem. The competitiveness of the ceramic district depends on a unified vision of the productive and logistical connections that precisely includes these other realities, also in relation to the strategic links with the port of Civitavecchia and the Orte interport hub. For this reason, I believe it is necessary to move beyond a merely administrative logic and recognize the district as a single economic and functional unit.”
Source: Read the original article | Published: April 16, 2026