In 2023 according to the latest estimates from Svimez, Southern Italy has grown more than the national average, something that hadn't happened for 9 years. Numbers in hand, last year the Southern Italy's GDP rose by 1,3% against the national 0,9%. The merit? Of the investments of the Pnrr. But, warns director Bianchi, “with differentiated autonomy we would not have had this growth”.
In 2023, growth of the medium will boom, employment will also be good
Svimez reports that “the South had not grown more than the rest of the country since 2015 (+1,4% against +0,6% in the Centre-North). And instead in 2023 that +1,3% compares with the +1% recorded in Northwest, with +0,9% of North East coast and with +0,4% of downtown which lags behind other areas of the country.
The data relating to the South is also positive occupational dynamics, with employed people in the South increasing by +2,6% on an annual basis, more than in the other macro-areas and compared to a national average of +1,8%.
“This is not an isolated year – underlines Luca Bianchi, director of Svimez – since Covid onwards the South has aligned itself with the Centre-North and this is due to the fact that there was a response to the crisis that was different from the previous ones, in the name of expansionary policies and not austerity”.
Svimez: growth driven by the Pnrr
The more pronounced growth of the southern GDP was supported above all by the construction (+4,5%, almost one percentage point more than the average for the Centre-North), compared to a more limited contraction in industrial sector (-0,5%) and a growth in services by 1,8%. The push came above all from the public investments which in 2023 grew by 16,8% in the South, against +7,2% in the Centre-North. In the southern regions as a whole, investments in public works went from 8,7 to 13 billion between 2022 and 2023 (+50,1% against +37,6% in the Centre-North).
“A dynamic they played on Pnrr investments play a fundamental role – explains Bianchi – and the acceleration of spending by European cohesion funds – This shows that the growth potential of the South can be reactivated and that investment policies are useful, especially if the interventions are placed within a national or even better European. It is a logic opposite to that of differentiated autonomy which weakens the country's competitive capacity."
Svimez: the ranking of the regions, Sicily at the top
Sicily is the region in Southern Italy that has grown the most in 2023. According to Svimez data, the Trinacria economy recorded +2,2%. A result which "was influenced by dynamics that were even more favorable than in the rest of the South in terms of public works (+60,4%) and more generally of public investments (+26%); industry also grew significantly (+3,4%), halting a medium-term trend towards deindustrialisation”. Sustained growth also in Abruzzo, Molise (+1,4%), Campania (1,3%) and Calabria (1,2%), while the increase in GDP in Basilicata (+0,9%) and Puglia (+0,7%) is more limited. Finally, Sardinia recorded growth of +1%.
On the other hand, the slowdown in industry is weighing on the North, with Svimez highlighting in particular the figure for Lombardy (+0,9%), influenced by the decline recorded in the industrial sector (-2,5%), one of the strongest among the central-northern regions, which was affected by the disappointing export data (+1,2%). Emilia-Romagna (+0,6%) also suffered the slowdown in foreign trade due to the slowdown of the German economy, which will stagnate in 2023.
Bianchi: “Lower growth with differentiated autonomy”
“With differentiated autonomy probably we would not have had such sustained growth“, said the director of Swimez, highlighting that “the South needs investments and a coordinated policy at national leveland, if not even at a European level as for the Pnrr". Autonomy, by fragmenting public policies, “will bring a progressive disinvestment in the regions of the South, depriving the South of growth potential and increasing the dependence of the Northern economy on Germany".
The growth of the center and the North
While the South advanced at a rapid pace, the GDP dynamic was weak in the Central regions (+0,4%), which grew less than half the national average. The reason? A decline in industrial added value more than double the national average (-2,6%; -1,1% the Italian figure) and a growth of services which stopped at +1,1% (+1,6% the national average, +1,8% the South), which sterilized the good dynamics of construction (+6,2%).
In Northwest GDP growth, equal to 1%, was instead conditioned by the decline in industrial added value (-1,4%) and by the much more limited growth of the national average in construction (+2,5%). In the North-East, it was above all the flat dynamics of industrial added value that limited GDP growth to +0,9%.
