Italy "is in a liquidity emergency". One company out of three does not have sufficient liquidity to operate and goes into crisis due to "short-term lack of funds".
Doubled the failures
In five years, between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2012, corporate bankruptcies doubled. The alarm was sounded by the director general of Confindustria, Marcella Panucci, in a hearing in the Chamber on the decree for the payment of overdue debts of the PA.
“The third wave of credit-crunch is underway, after those of 2007-2009 and that of 2011-2012”, Panucci explained, recalling that “a third of companies have insufficient liquidity with respect to operational needs. Companies with valid investment projects, therefore with turnover expectations such as to be able to pay the debt service, go into crisis due to lack of funds in the short term".
The scarcity of funds "contributes to the increase in bankruptcies: 3.596 in the fourth quarter of 2012 against approximately 1.800 in the fourth quarter of 2007," said Panucci.
To restart the confidence of the banks and therefore bank credit "we need a shock that decisively re-launch the growth of the Italian economy". The first action to be taken, according to the director general of viale dell'Astronomia, is "the immediate payment to companies of at least two thirds of the commercial debts of the PA".
91 billion of debts to companies
“The Italian public administrations have debts to businesses of around 91 billion euros at the end of 2011, just under 6% of GDP”. An amount, said the director general of Confindustria Marcella Panucci in a hearing in the Chamber, "that has no equal in Europe: it is one and a half times the commercial debts of the PA in France, almost three times Portugal, more than 4 times Spain and almost 5 those of Greece”.
