Lower oil prices, a weaker euro and a drop in long-term rates linked to the ECB's Quantitative Easing measures, together with more lively world trade: these are the key factors at the beginning of 2015, which according to the Confindustria Study Center will give a boost to the GDP for a value of 2,1% this year and another 2,5% next.
Year 2015 was a watershed from recession to positive GDP-employment
"For the Italian economy - reads the flash note published today on the CSC website - 2015 is increasingly proclaiming itself as a watershed year, because the long and deep recession that began in 2008 ends and the positive changes for GDP and employment return . Which will probably turn out to be much higher than current forecasts, even the most recent ones”.
“This crucial step – continues the study – is due, in very unequal parts, to three orders of factors. First of all, the very favorable combination of external elements, a real godsend: collapse in the price of oil, devaluation of the euro exchange rate, acceleration of world trade, decrease in long-term interest rates”.
Growth much higher than expected: +2,1% in 2015, +2,5% in 2016
Adding up their effects, estimated by the CSC on the basis of conservative hypotheses, "we arrive at a boost for Italy equal to 2,1% of GDP in 2015 and an additional 2,5% in 2016". These expansive impulses remain "substantial even after the tare has been fully implemented to take into account the difficulties of the context of a serious crisis". In a recent report, the CSC estimated that the quantitative easing announced by the ECB would translate into a 1,8% increase in GDP for Italy over two years: +0,8% in 2015 and +1 % in 2016.
January production +0,3%, positive XNUMXst quarter GDP
The CSC then estimates a 0,3% increase in industrial production in January, after +0,1% in December. According to the Confindustria Study Centre, the fourth quarter closed better than expected, with a drop of 0,3%. In the first quarter of 2015, the acquired increase was +0,5%. "This dynamic is consistent with a flat GDP at the end of 2014 - which reduces the drag on 2015 to -0,1% (from -0,2% estimated in December) - and growing in the first quarter of 2015".
