"The numbers we produce they are based on a careful assessment of the impacts of the maneuver, not on fantasy or unachievable expectations. These are achievable expectations”. These are the words of the Minister of the Economy, Pier Carlo Padoan, who spoke today at the conference "Forced to grow", organized in Rome by Abi and Messaggero. The number one of the Treasury thus reaffirmed his position in response to the Bank of Italy, the Court of Auditors and the Parliamentary Budget Office, which in recent days had judged the growth forecasts contained in the latest update of the Document too optimistic of economics and finance (GDP +1% in 2017).
"The maneuver takes into account the stringent constraints imposed on public finances - continued Padoan - and the need to support growth through private investments, but also giving a growing space to the public investments. The latter will increase not only because there will be more resources, but also because we are improving the spending mechanisms. We are convinced that all this will have an important impact on growth and expectations".
And precisely in terms of expectations, a positive signal has already arrived with "the launch of the BTP at 50 years – underlined Padoan -, which was positively received on the markets: I take it as a sign of confidence in the country in the short and long term". The banking system, Instead, "it has problems that are often distorted and misperceived by international public opinion".
As for the obstacles that Italy must overcome to return to satisfactory growth, the minister believes that the most significant is "the problem of productivity, which has fallen and continues to fall: this is the most worrying indicator when it comes to Italy, not debt or bank non-performing loans, and this is the great challenge that budgetary policies must face”.
The government, Padoan assured, “is taking this challenge very seriously, with the strategy Industry 4.0” and more generally with an approach based “on the interconnection between budget policies and structural policies. Over time this strategy brings benefits. This is demonstrated by the structural reforms made by Germany in the first part of the 2000s, which then helped it to overcome the crisis years better than others”. After all, the growthit's not a question of decimals – concluded the minister – e there are no shortcuts. We must use all the tools at our disposal: monetary policy, fiscal policy and structural policy”.
