2019 ofItalian economy has hit the finish line on the wrong foot: the accelerating backwards march of manufacturing. With the PMI index at its lowest since April 2013, when the second recession of the long crisis was still raging. So that the closing reiterated that the one just passed was the worst decade in peacetime by the unification of Italy.
And how does 2020 start? The data of confidence and the OECD anticipator, the only ones available to throw a ray of light on the present even before the near future, give only apparently conflicting signals. The anticipator continues to fall and, based on its ability to predict turning points over the next 4-8 months, there won't be a significant return to growth until at least spring.
Confidence, on the other hand, increased in December among both consumers both between companies; but its increase among consumers is only a partial recovery of the sharp fall in November and the level is still far from the highs reached in July. While the recovery from the lows reached at the end of the summer continues among companies, but with clear differences between sectors: perky Retail and construction, lackluster manufacturing and market services. All in all, not a comforting set.
Orders to manufacturing companies, which are future production, continue to drop significantly, according to the Markit qualitative survey, while those surveyed by Istat recorded three consecutive monthly increases up to October, from the multi-year low reached in July.
In this picture of shadows, the two lights are consumption and exports. But they are performances to be taken lightly. On the front of consumption the summer exploit (+1,6% annualized) is attributable to the arrival of the basic income, which is a concentrated and stable payment over time; already during the summer and at the beginning of autumn the dynamics of retail sales reduced the momentum of household expenditure in the context of the wage bill, therefore of employment (which slowed down) and real wages.
THEoccupation it began to slow down, being affected, with the usual delay, by the fluctuations in production activity. The real wages they accelerated, thanks to the drop in inflation; with the return of this to less low values, the purchasing power of pay slips will increase by a little or a point. Thus it is probable that consumption will rise again at around 1% per annum.
for exports must be underlined, as in the previous ones Economy hands, the ability demonstrated by Made in Italy to keep up with the difficulties of international trade. Between the fourth quarter of 2018, when the volume of world trade began to contract, and the third quarter of 2019, cross-border sales of Italian goods increased steadily: +1,0% cumulative, against -1,0% of global imports . And this happened despite the difficulties of two cornerstones of Italian specialization: investment goods and car components. Now that trade is showing clear signs of stabilisation-recovery, Italian exports should accelerate.
In the rest of the world, on the other hand, there are further confirmations of the end of the stagnation phase and the beginning of a restart. This is true in China and in the countries that geo-economically gravitate around it.
But also in the USA, despite the continued gap for manufacturing between the Markit index, slightly down, however in an expansive area, and the ISM, again sharply down and in a recessionary area. The only drawback (not a small one) of the American locomotive is the decline in private investments other than housing, a decline underway since the second quarter of 2019 and which, from the trend in orders for capital goods, does not seem about to end; on the other hand, i profits they are stagnant, even if with very different dynamics between sectors and periods.
However, it is not true Germany and in the economies pivoting on the German hub, and therefore in the Eurozone, where the manufacturing recession is deepening ("Eurozone KO" was the headline in the latest economic Lancette). The European exception, of which the UK plays a large part also in the causes (uncertainty of the final account of Brexit) as well as in the effects (the British industrial recession is among the worst), can be largely explained by the German auto crisis: nobody wants their diesel anymore, while everyone is asking for other engines (especially pure electric or hybrid), of which there is not enough production capacity.
Outside Europe, therefore, the international framework it is improving. And before immediately thinking about the anxiety about the outcome of the US presidential elections (March will be decisive on the democratic front) and about commercial and non-commercial relations between China and America, let's enjoy the start of the new decade, a start that looks less negative than how the previous one ended.
