“Since the beginning of the year, the economic situation has become more uncertain; the setback of industrial production in January was followed by a rapid recovery in February. In March, the first month following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, families they have become more cautious on decisions to purchase durable goods “. This is what we read in the April economic note of the Parliamentary Budget Office (UPB) which analyzes what are, to date, the effects of the conflict on the international and Italian scenarios.
Based on the estimates of the Parliamentary Budget Office (BPO), in the first three months of the year, GDP would have decreased by about half a percentage point, with a balanced but very wide range. “The decline in production rates in manufacturing would have been matched by a less unfavorable dynamic in the tertiary sector, thanks also to the easing of restrictions to combat Covid-19”, specifies UPB, underlining, however, that in the medium term the downside risks on growth clearly prevail and up on inflation, due to the conflict in Ukraine. According to a PBO simulation, the war has already subtracted about one percentage point from Italy’s GDP in 2022; if the duration of the military phase were to be temporally extended by a quarter, the cost for the economic activity of our country would increase by a further 1.6 points of GDP over the two-year period 2022-23.