The recovery of the Italian economy from the 2011-2013 recession has been consolidating and is accelerating this year, but we are "still a long way off" from the pre-crisis levels: by continuing growth at the current pace, the recovery will be completed only in 2021. This is what emerges from the Industrial Scenarios of the Confindustria Study Centre.
The rise in GDP started in the second half of 2013 and continued at a "faster pace" from the beginning of 2015, until it became more robust from the end of 2016. Since 2013, the Italian GDP has grown overall by 3,6 %, recovering over two thirds of the fall recorded in the previous two years (-5,2%), with a speed that gradually strengthened to reach the quarterly average +0,4% in the last three quarters.
The recovery is characterized by being "more persistent but so far on average slower than that observed after the 2007-2009 recession", observed the CSC. The extent recorded so far is almost identical in the two recovery phases of the recessions (+3,5% in the first and +3,6% in the second), but the current one has lasted for 16 quarters against 8 in the previous one, with a average quarterly growth rate which is almost half that recorded in the two years starting from the second quarter of 2009: +0,2% against +0,42%. “Acceleration – wrote the CSC – is however raising the recent pace above the then average”.
ITALY REMAINS SEVENTH IN THE WORLD MANUFACTURING RANKING
IN EUROPE WE ARE SECOND ONLY TO GERMANY
According to the ranking of the main global manufacturing producers drawn up annually by the Centro Studi di Confindustria, China and the United States remain firmly in the lead with shares of world value added in current dollars of 29,5% and 19% respectively, stable compared to 2015, while Japan, in third place, sees its share grow again for the first time since 2010, settling at 8,4%. Italy's seventh position was also stable, with a constant share of 2,3%, the second best position in Europe behind Germany, in fourth place, with a share of 5,9%. India and South Korea remain ahead of Italy.
“Industry has restarted to drive the GDP in the world – explained the director of the CSC, Luca Paolazzi – and also in Italy”. Among the top fifteen world producers, the only ones to lose positions are Brazil and Russia, which have dropped respectively to thirteenth and fifteenth place as a result of the severe recessions that have hit them since 2014.
Italy "has well coupled the industrial recovery of the euro area, which since 2013 is higher than that of the United States and Japan: +2,3% against +0,9% and +2,1% the corresponding average changes annually between 2013 and 2016,” noted the CSC. Industry has returned to driving European economic development: the difference between the real growth of the manufacturing added value and that of the GDP is +0,9 percentage points; in Italy it is the same.
The recovery of Italian industry, however, “is taking place despite the still too weak growth of loans to companies in the sector. With the development of the alternative capital markets still contained, despite the undoubted recent progress, the economic recovery has so far been financed largely by the recovery of the profitability of companies and therefore by self-financing”, observed the CSC.
As for the world of work, a change of course has been observed since the spring of 2015. The number of hours worked increased by 5,2% (up to mid-2017), mainly due to the lengthening of working hours; employment recorded a +1,5%, about 60 more workers.
Previously, between autumn 2007 and winter 2015, employment in Italian manufacturing fell by almost 800 thousand units (-17,1%).
