Municipality’s Profile
Mazara del Vallo, Municipality of the Province of Trapani, rises on the western coast of Sicily, in a fertile area and in a favourable position for the commercial relationships between Europe and the Mediterranean, with a privileged relationship with the countries of North Africa.
Its area is about 275,90 square km and is characterized by a large plain and a coast that extends for more than 18 km.
The Mazaro river that crosses Mazara is navigable in its final part and has made the town a very important commercial port in the past and one of the most active fishing ports of the Mediterranean Sea today.

The strategic and administrative importance that Mazara enjoyed in the past, together with the presence of some important historical monuments, its beautiful landscape and the rich archaeological and monumental heritage of the Province of Trapani give a tourist significance to Mazara, that can be easily reached from Trapani and Palermo thanks to the good road links and the near airports.
The town has a population of about 50,000 inhabitants, working mainly in the sector of fishing, housing, commerce, agriculture and sheep breading.
The agricultural sector, one of the main support to local economy, is mainly directed to viniculture that occupies a cultivable area corresponding to 15,000 ha, involving a majority of family business and ten cellars managed either by co-operatives and by private business. Lately, land properties have been transformed into intensive cultures and glasshouse cultures with good results.
The strong crisis of the latest years in the fishing sector, a driving one in Mazara’s economy, have had a great repercussion on the whole community. To be considered that in the fishing sector about 10.000 people are involved (18,5% of the population), more than 1.500 of which are immigrated workers.
The main reasons may be found in the strong haul reduction in the traditional fishing areas of the Sicily Channel, in the difficulties in creating and developing induced and complementary activities helpful for production diversification and for the scarce use of alternative fishing techniques (aquaculture and sea culture in floating cages).

Maritime activities induce many other economic activities such as the commercial one, the shipbuilding industry, electric and mechanic industry, haul conservation and transformation and the number of small enterprises linked with fishing.
The tourist-hotel sector starts opening itself to the new economic interests through an expanding network of restaurants, pizzerias, hotels, camping, bed & breakfast and rural tourism; also the building trade counts on a large number of employees, but the most active sector, after fishing, is the one of the services and trade. This depends also on the very favourable position of Mazara in the Mediterranean.

Main employers:

Fishing: 26%
Agriculture: 25%
Services: 31%
Commerce: 9%
Induced activities of fishing: 9%

Previous experience
In 1995, in Mazara del Vallo a Community Policies Bureau was constituted whose principal objective is to promote the local development, to favour the transnational connections and to activate informative channels related to the national and community opportunities.

In the international field the Municipality of Mazara del Vallo has dealt for years with activities with the Mediterranean Countries and it has developed an important role as institutional interlocutor of Countries as Tunisia and Morocco, and it has directly participated in partnership with France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary and Romania in community programmes, obtaining a good experience in the active share to the transnational partnerships, in the diffusion of the results and in the transfer and application of best-practices.
For these reasons among the programmatic objectives of the town administration it is set as a priority the understanding, the integration and the exchange between multi-ethnics peoples through specific measures and community planning.

In this field there is the project PROPART (Promotion of the industrial Partnership) introduced within the programme Ecos-Ouverture whose principal objective was to favour the partnership and the cooperation between enterprises that had taken part in the project.

Within the programme INTEGRA a project was realized, called Ethnobusiness, whose objective was the creation of employment through the promotion of SMEs undertook by immigrants and/or mixed, professional qualification, social and cultural integration of the immigrants.
Besides, the Municipality finished different projects in the sector of employment and education, within the community programmes NOW, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Culture 2000 with which has intended to promote the multi-culturalism and the globalization, also through contacts with the world of the associations and volunteers occupied in the reception and promotion of the immigrants’ integration.

Within the Twinships programme in Mazara del Vallo an international congress was organised called “Euro-Mediterranean – Culture, Economy and Development in the vivacity of the peoples” with partners from Greece, Spain, Malta and Tunisia.

Immediately afterwards, a project of cooperation with Tunisia has been financed by the Sicilian Region called “Proche”, whose second part has recently been financed. The objective of these financings is the economic development in depressed zones of Tunisia, in particular the tourist development through the exploitation of archaeological sites.
Within the EQUAL programme the project “The immigrants in Mazara del Vallo: a human value to be formed for not discriminating” has been financed by the European Commission. The objective: to reduce the problems of discrimination of the immigrated workers creating the conditions for a working integration on the market.

Another project, in which the Municipalityparticipated as partner, was “Marimed” financed by the European Commission within the INTERREG IIIb Medocc programme.

In the field of environment thanks to a community contribution within the LIFE- Nature programme an important damp zone of community interest called “Capo Feto” has been restored and retrained being an important standstill of the avifauna in the migratory routes from Africa to Europe and vice versa.
The Municipality of Mazara del Vallo is currently working on the the strategic plan “Mazara City Door of the Mediterranean” that foresees:

-Expansion of the productive-entrepreneurial system through the development of the harbour both commercial and tourist in 2010, foreseen with the start of the free trade zone in the European-Mediterranean;
- Improvement and integration of the accessibility and mobility of the urban/territorial system of Mazara del Vallo;
- Revitalisation of the historical centre and the adjacent area of the navigable channel/river;
- Quality of life through the technological innovation of the Public Administration and the infrastructure territorial system and the realisation of a modern e-government system.

Expectations
The Municipality’s expectations from this project are to strengthen the cooperation between the administration and the partners and to transfer its experiences and know-how in strategic planning.