From 1997 to today, Italy has recorded a loss of per capita GDP of over 3.800 euros, but with reforms that fill our systemic gaps, growth can be consistently above 2%. This is the picture illustrated to the Chamber by the director of the Confindustria Study Centre, Luca Paolazzi. A message that comes right next to the Istat data, which certify that the GDP is declining for the second consecutive semester and that Italy is now in full recession.
Speaking on the 2012 growth from the Budget and EU Policies commissions, Paolazzi underlined that "filling the gaps" in terms of our systemic deficiencies, and therefore intervening with reforms, "would impart a dynamic to the Italian economy and society in addition to that included in the spontaneous tendencies and such as to permanently raise the rate of increase of the GDP well above 2% per year, against much less than 1% which would occur spontaneously”.
A more than healthy step, also in the light of the numbers that have characterized our recent past: from 1997 to 2011 - explained Paolazzi - the growth gap of Italy compared to the other countries of the euro area was equal to 14,7 .232,2%, equal to an "annual loss of GDP of 3.822 billion, i.e. 1997 euros per inhabitant". In detail: from 2007, when the common European currency was actually born, to 9,4, the growth rate of the Italian economy was on average almost one percentage point lower than that of all the other countries in the euro area, with a cumulative XNUMX%.
"A huge waste, given that with an EU average rate, Italy's GDP would be 148 billion higher. Then came the crisis and the gap reached 14,7 percent”. Paolazzi also indicates the paths to follow: “Il fiscal consolidation and growth-enhancing measures should be seen as pieces of a single mosaic. The first generates stability, produces the conditions for sustainability and frees operators from uncertainty. In this way it creates the soil conducive to growth. The latter enhance the dynamism of the economy, alleviate the serious sacrifices and give them the most convincing and valid motivation for better prospects in the not too distant future”.
And on the public accounts front, Confindustria recognizes that the government's measures are proving adequate to achieve a balanced budget in 2013. “The public finance objectives that Italy has set itself – noted Paolazzi – are very ambitious: achieving a balanced budget in 2013 and starting the reduction of public debt in relation to GDP in the same year at rates even higher than those considered appropriate at European level. The policies adopted to pursue them are impressive, with corrections equal to six points of GDP when fully operational in 2013”.
But Paolazzi also insists on the key to reforms: “reforms - he said - are vital precisely to raise productivity and, therefore, the growth rate of the Italian economy. The fields in which it is necessary to intervene are many”. For example, public investments, public spending, and on the revenue front, partially shifting the levy towards consumption and assets. Not only. "The revenue recovered from tax evasion, both with contrasting measures and with the increase in compliance, must be quantified and entirely allocated to the reduction of the tax levy, in particular that on work and on businesses - insisted the director of the Study Center of Confindustria - The tax-contribution wedge and the effective tax rate paid by companies are at the highest international levels. The reduction in tax rates would have various effects: it would favor the spontaneous fulfillment of tax obligations, it would make the country attractive for investments and it would increase its competitiveness”.
