“A giant that cannot go into default”. This is how Brazil sees us. And we can only be pleased. However, the South American giant underlines how ours is economy, the third largest in Europe, is weak and need big reforms to get back on track.
The São Paulo newspaper, Estadão, offers three graphs (see images) elaborated from data from the European Union which clearly reflect the dangerous state of the Italian economy.
The first graph examines the industrial production from October 2010 to today and it is evident that it has always fluctuated between +2 and -2 percentage points until the collapse in September. Industrial production has hit a record not seen since 2008: -4,8%. As the newspaper points out, the main sectors of strength of the Italian economy are the tourism, fashion, mechanical construction, chemicals, automotive and food e Lombardy and Tuscany they are the richest regions.
The second graph instead analyzes the unemployment rate which in the last year has never fallen below 8%. Of course, the problem should be investigated further in order to then see the inequalities between the north and the south and above all between the different age groups (children aged between 25 and 30 reached 25,9%).
The last graph, on the other hand, shows the evolution of the growth of GDP which has slowed down in recent months, fluctuating between 0,1 and 0,6%. Currently Italy has to face the serious debt problem (which continues to rise with stagnant growth) and a high inflation. Consumer prices for October, with growth of 3,4% over the same period last year, was the highest in the past 16 months.
Even if the data is not very encouraging, the Brazilians seem confident and hope that the new Monti government will start a process of reforms adequate to relaunch the Italian economy.
Read the article on Estadao
