After the slowdown recorded in the first half of 2012, the world economy is experiencing a weaker and more fragile recovery phase in this second part of the year than expected.
The slowdown in world trade but, above all, the climate of uncertainty about the effectiveness of US budgetary policies aimed at containing the growth of public debt have a negative impact on the short-term prospects, but the sovereign debt crisis of many countries weighs even more heavily of the euro area and the risk that the fragile financial conditions of some Member States could also infect the countries of the area which currently show more stable economic and financial situations.
In the World Economic Outlook of October, the International Monetary Fund predicts that the world economy will grow by 2012% in 3,3 to reach 3,6% in 2013. World trade, which in 2011 had increased by 5,8 %, will close the current year with +3,2% which should rise to +4,5% in 2013. Based on IMF estimates, the Gross Domestic Product of emerging countries, despite the repercussions deriving from the weakness of demand originating from the main industrialized countries, will continue, also this year, to grow at a sustained pace (+5,3%) even if lower than in the past (+6,2% in 2011).
Contributing to this result are China with +7,8% (+9,2% the year before) and India with 4,9% (+6,8% in 2011). For advanced countries, the average increase in GDP will be 1,3%, the +2,2% forecast for the United States and Japan is contrasted with the -0,4% in the euro area which should followed, in 2013, by a contained progress of +0,2%. Within the European Union, Germany and France will close 2012 with an increase close to one percentage point, while for Spain and Italy the adoption of restrictive economic policies aimed at containing the public debt will determine a contraction respectively equal to 1,5 % and 2,3%.
The negative trends expected for our country essentially derive from the strong reduction in internal demand which the National Institute of Statistics estimates at 3,6% for the current year, while exports, which partly mitigated the contraction in GDP, are feeling the effects of the economic downturn in the main countries of the euro area towards which Italy directs more than half of its entire turnover destined for foreign countries. With reference to the evolution of production activity in the EU area, the positive results achieved on average in 2011 were followed by substantially stagnant trends throughout 2012.
In the third quarter of the current year, despite a partial improvement in the economic situation, metalworking production decreased, compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, by 1,9% in Germany, by 2% in France and by 7% in Spain, while in the United Kingdom, in sharp contrast, growth was recorded by 4,9%.
Read the complete survey by downloading the pdf
Attachments: 124th joint survey of the metalworking industry_Federmeccanica_1112.pdf
