In export markets, “Made in Italy” is a premium — and the most counterfeited claim there is. A label asserts it. In the Gulf, where the buyer never visited the factory, an assertion is the weakest form of that claim: what travels is the product and its paper, and paper is easy to print. Here is what origin means in law — and how the Ledger Consortium partnership with the Joint Italian Arab Chamber of Commerce (JIACC), signed in October 2026, makes it checkable across the Mediterranean.
Origin is a legal test, not a label
Non-preferential origin — the origin behind a “Made in” claim — is defined by Article 60 of the Union Customs Code, Regulation (EU) No 952/2013. Goods wholly obtained in a single country originate there. Where production involves several countries, goods originate where they underwent their last, substantial, economically justified processing or working, in an undertaking equipped for that purpose, resulting in a new product or an important stage of manufacture.
The test is about where things happened — materials, processing steps, the equipped undertaking — not where a box was closed. A serious claim rests on an evidence file assembled while the product is made, not reconstructed when a buyer asks.
Italy’s law: a security mark, and ledgers for traceability
Italy legislated on this point with Law No 206 of 27 December 2023 (Gazzetta Ufficiale No 300 of 27 December 2023, in force since 11 January 2024), whose Article 1 aims to valorise and promote Italian excellence in Italy and abroad, within EU internal-market rules. Two articles matter here.
Article 41 creates an official mark attesting the Italian origin of goods. Adopted by ministerial decree, in compliance with EU customs law on origin, its use outside the permitted cases is forbidden; companies producing goods on the national territory under EU law may affix it voluntarily. It is no sticker: it has the nature of carta valori (security paper), made with security techniques, watermarked papers or magnetic and electronic systems against counterfeiting and falsification. The decree must also discipline the technology guaranteeing certification and supply-chain traceability, with reference to Article 47. Protected geographical indications for agri-food products are excluded; they keep their own rules.
Article 47 points to the record behind the mark. The Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy promotes the development and use of distributed-ledger technology — as defined by Article 8-ter of Decree-Law No 135/2018 — for the traceability and valorisation of the Made in Italy supply chain and for the completeness and reliability of information available to consumers. It sets up a national catalogue of compliant solutions and supports SMEs building ledger-based traceability from raw materials to commercial distribution. An origin mark built like a security document, ledger traceability behind it: a Digital Product Passport is the product-level record that does both jobs at once.
Why the Gulf tests origin hardest
Distance is the point. A buyer or authority in an Arab market cannot audit an Italian factory by proximity; the relationship runs on documents and trust. That is JIACC’s corridor: the chamber promotes cultural, economic and commercial relations with the Arab countries and supports companies internationalising toward them. There, provable origin is not overhead. It is the sales asset that survives the journey — a premium that can be checked at destination, not merely claimed.
The partnership: what it does
In October 2026, Ledger Consortium signed a partnership with JIACC. Italian companies associated with or referred by the chamber can give their products a Ledger Digital Product Passport for export to Arab markets: identity, origin and journey in one verifiable record — see the JIACC × Ledger demo. Two boundaries, plainly. Where the ESPR has not yet made a passport mandatory — agri-food is the clearest case — the passport here is voluntary proof, not an EU obligation. For the groups on the ESPR sequence — batteries first, then steel, textiles, tyres, aluminium, furniture, mattresses — the same record is also the compliance record the EU market will require. One data backbone, two markets.
What a buyer actually checks
- The buyer scans the data carrier — no app, no account — and the passport opens on that item’s own identity: the persistent unique product identifier Article 10 of the ESPR requires.
- Origin and production data for that item — where it was made, from what, by whom: the Article 60 evidence file, in structured form.
- The journey, recorded step by step, each event anchored, timestamped and tamper-evident — the history presented at destination is the history recorded at origin.
- An unknown identifier, a mismatch, or a history that does not verify is an immediate red flag — as we set out in A Label Can Be Copied in Seconds.
What exporters should prepare now
- An origin evidence file per product: where it is wholly obtained, or where the last substantial processing happened, with supplier and materials data behind it.
- Identifiers before labels: persistent unique product, operator and facility identifiers on open standards — one record for the EU registry logic and a buyer’s phone.
- Tiered access: the public layer proves identity and origin; sensitive detail stays on the ESPR’s restricted layers.
- One record, kept updated: origin data collected once, at production.
How Ledger Consortium helps
Ledger Consortium aggregates your and your suppliers’ product data, anchors each record on a governed blockchain — timestamped and tamper-evident — and keeps it updated as rules evolve. Anchoring proves a record existed and has not been altered; it does not certify that the data a client supplied was true — accuracy remains the operator’s responsibility. Predictable costs, no token or crypto exposure, GDPR- and eIDAS-aligned. In Italy, the Ledger DPP is distributed by Il Sole 24 Ore (Valore24), whose channel onboards dozens of companies per month. See a working passport in our live demo, read Recycled Content: Proving What a Product Is Made Of, and browse News.