La Bank of Italy the 2021 GDP estimates improve economic bulletin released on Friday, Via Nazionale forecasts for this year growth 5,1%. Only last month, in the economic projections conducted for the last coordinated exercise of the Eurosystem, the central institute had written that the recovery would stop just below the 5% threshold, at 4,9%. The new data is even better than that proposed by the governor Ignazio Visco, who during the last assembly Abi he had spoken of a +5% for this year.
In any case, Bankitalia specifies that Italy's GDP will return on pre-pandemic levels only in the second half of next year. For the whole 2022, the new estimates speak of an expansion of 4,4%, just below the estimate released in June (4,5%). For the 2023, however, the forecast of a slowdown to 2,3% is confirmed.
The new forecasts are based on a probabilistic scenario built on a series of hypotheses: "That the national and global health improvement consolidates - explains Bankitalia - that the decisive support of the budgetary policy continues, using both national resources and European funds, and that monetary and financial conditions remain favourable, as prefigured by the Governing Council of the ECB”.
Le support and recovery measures, on whose "effectiveness and timeliness" the scenario designed by the bulletin "strongly" depends, should contribute four percentage points to the growth of GDP in the three-year period 2021-2023: of these, two are attributable to the Pnrr.
Bank of Italy also underlines that "the main elements of uncertainty with respect to growth projections are linked to theevolution of the pandemic (which can affect consumption and investments), the implementation methods of projects connected with the Pnrr and their ability to also affect potential growth, as well as the response of consumers to the reopening of the economy".
Driving the recovery, "in contrast with what happened after the two previous recessions", the strong contribution of investments, which should start growing again "in a sustained manner thanks to the prospects for demand, the favorable financing conditions and the support of the Pnrr", continues Via Nazionale.
In this scenario, at the end of the three-year period “the ratio between investments and GDP would return to the levels prevailing before the global crisis of 2008-09; the weight on the product of the public component would return, after a decade, in line with the European average. The recovery in consumption would be more gradual; inflation in the next two years would remain contained, around 1,3 per cent”.
