La Lombard manufacture it continues to lose momentum while demonstrating greater vitality than Italy as a whole. After coming close to an increase of four percentage points, the estimates on Lombard GDP of 2023, although higher than the national ones, show a drastic slowdown for 2023, practically going almost to zero the speed of the Region with the most important productive fabric in Italy and among the main ones in Europe.
It is one of the main ideas offered by the November Economy Booklet created by Assolombarda. The document, edited by the Association's Study Center, highlights the level of uncertainty that is holding back the growth prospects of the economic fabric of the Region.
Spada: "From the Government only an aid to survival, but not the solution"
"The slowdown linked to the GDP is due to the tensions that have to do with the increase in the cost of raw materials - declared the president of Assolombarda, Alessandro Spada -. With particular reference to gas, for example, prices in Europe, in the last month, have dropped on average to around 115 euro megawatt-hour, but are still ten times higher than pre-Covid. In this sense, it is good that the new Government intervened immediately with a Decree on the energy problem and that it did not prevaricate. However, we must keep in mind that these measures - I am also thinking of the latest budget law presented yesterday - are only an aid to survival, not the solution to the problem. It is up to Italy to invest more in the mix of sources to achieve energy independence; I am thinking in particular of the usefulness of regasification plants and waste-to-energy plants and of the importance of studies on nuclear power. Energy is essential for a manufacturing area like ours and, in this sense, we must commit ourselves to sheltering our businesses: the risk is that of stopping the economic engine of the country, Lombardy".
Lombardy GDP report by Assolombarda: forecasts
According to the report by Assolombarda, one is expected for Lombardy, as well as for Italy flexion economy both in the last months of 2022 and in the first months of 2023.
In the span of 2022 growth of +3,9% is expected for Lombardy, a result higher than the Italian average (+3,4%) which allows the region to fully make up for the loss of GDP suffered in 2020, thus settling at the end of 2022, up 1,8% compared to 2019. With particular reference to its sectors, theindustry region will not close the gap with 2019 for a while (-0,2% value added), affected by the increase in production inputs and the international slowdown. So it will be for theagriculture (-2,4%); on the contrary, the sector of construction will increase significantly (+30,1%) as well as that of services and business (+ 1,0%).
For 2023, however, it is expected that the Lombard gross domestic product could only increase by 0,3% (in Italy the increase is estimated at +0,1%). The Region's result is influenced by a contraction in the added value of industry (-1,0%) and agriculture (-0,5%), against a limited increase in both construction (+1,2%) both services and commerce (+0,5%).
Worries about the "cooling down" of the question
According to the latest surveys, there is also growing concern regarding the insufficiency of the question which is 'cooling down' and which inevitably impacts on the growth forecasts of the Lombardy economy, both for the current year and for the next. This is an obstacle to production that affects 16% of manufacturing companies in the North-West: a percentage that has never been so high in the last year and a half. Added to this figure are some signs of easing in the bottlenecks linked to theoffering: the percentage of companies reporting shortages of materials and systems decreases, in fact, in the third quarter to 12% (after the peak of 23% in the first quarter and 16% in the second).
The confidence of manufacturing companies and consumers is still declining
Furthermore, in October, the "sentiment indications" confirm the signs of a slowdown of the previous months. After all, the confidence of manufacturing companies in Lombardy and in the North-West is still declining for the fourth consecutive month and falls to its lowest since January 2021. This trend is linked, in particular, to the further reduction of orders in portfolio and stocks of finished products that accumulate in warehouses; however, there is a slight improvement in the expectations associated with the production.
As for services in the North West, confidence recorded in October rebounds slightly, despite the fact that the sector suffers, however, from very cautious demand expectations in the short term. Finally, households are even more affected by the deterioration of the economic context: consumer confidence in the North-West drops to its lowest level since May 2020 in October.
