Il Italian GDP grew by 1% on an annual basis in 2016. This is stated by Istat, specifying that this is the largest increase in the Italian economy since 2010. Despite this growth, however, the Institute of Statistics notes in its report on Competitiveness GDP in 2016 remains seven percentage points lower than in early 2008, before the crisis.
Also weighing on the Italian economy is the sharp reduction in the number of companies: in four years, between 2011 and 2014, however, the system has over 194.000 businesses (-4,6%) and almost 800.000 employees (-5%). Construction was most affected by the crisis (-10% of companies, -20% of employees, -30% of added value). More contained losses in manufacturing (-7,2% of companies, -6,8% of employees) and in market services (-4,7% and -3,3%), while personal services are the the only sector that has increased production units (+5,3%) and employees (+5%).
Returning to GDP, in the fourth quarter of 2016 there was an increase of 0,2% compared to the previous quarter and of 1,0% compared to the fourth quarter of 2015. Istat specified that in the preliminary estimate of 14 February, the statistics indicated an identical cyclical increase of 0,2% but a higher trend growth, equal to 1,1%.
Compared to the previous quarter, the main aggregates of domestic demand increased, with growth of 0,2% in national final consumption and 1,3% in gross fixed investments.
