It's official: Italy has entered a recession. According to preliminary estimates by Istat, in the fourth quarter of 2011, GDP fell by 0,7% compared to the previous three months and by 0,5% on an annual basis. It is the second consecutive quarter of negative economic growth: a trend that for economists means "technical recession".
The cyclical result, explains the statistical institute, "is the synthesis of sectoral dynamics of the added value that are positive for agriculture, negative for industry, substantially stationary for services".
The data also includes the growth acquired for 2012 (the one that would exist if all the quarters of this year were at zero growth) negative: -0,6%. Last year, however, the GDP increased by 0,4% (but the latest government forecasts spoke of a +0,6%), while in 2010 it had registered a +1,4%. The last year of recession for Italy was 2009, with the GDP down by 5,1%.
In fact, it has been known for some time that our country would enter a recession. At this point it is important to establish how heavy the bill to pay will be in the coming months and above all when we will be able to start growing again. There are different schools of thought on this front.
According to Prometeia, the Intesa Sanpaolo research centre, the darkest moments are yet to come: in 2012 GDP will drop by 1,7%, while the following year we will see very slight growth, close to stagnation (+0,2 %). A real recovery will come only in 2014.
The economists of Unicredit have a completely different opinion, according to which this year the GDP of our country should drop by just 0,3%. The worst phase of the crisis would therefore already be behind us and in 2013 the recovery should reach +0,4%.
