The goal of a 2017 GDP growth of 1% is “ambitious but achievable”. Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said this during a hearing to the joint budget commissions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on the update note to the Def. The number one of the Treasury thus responds to the perplexities expressed yesterday in a similar hearing by the deputy general manager of the Bank of Italy, Federico Signorini.
"We too consider this goal to be ambitious because we have a duty to be, but it is achievable - said Padoan - This ambition is concretely supported by a maneuver which gives a boost, a boost to growth”.
The budget law, continued the minister, "is constructed with attention to the composition which has often been evoked by the President of the ECB and which was referred to yesterday during the hearing of the Bank of Italy as a crucial element of a sustainable strategy for growth".
As for theGDP trend, Padoan recalled that "growth in Italy turned positive again in 2014 and increased in 2015 and 2016, also thanks to a budget policy more favorable to growth". But the minister also admitted that, "despite this, the recovery of pre-crisis product levels in Italy is proving to be slower than desirable due to the slowdown of the global and European economy, together with the insufficient action to reform the Italian economy in the years preceding the crisis”. Furthermore, the minister reiterated, "even the reforms implemented take time to fully unfold their effect".
Finally, on the front of public debt reduction, “the intention of the government to continue with the the program for the disposal of public real estate assets and privatizations – concluded Padoan –, held back this year by the conditions of high volatility of the financial markets and by the need to adequately enhance the companies controlled by the State through ambitious industrial plans”.
