“This year we are growing a lot. The growth rate in 2023-24 will be very high,” said Economy Minister Daniele Franco during the hearing on the Update to the Economic and Finance Document (Nadef). «I think it is a goal for the following years. To this end, fiscal policy will remain expansionary in 2022-2023 to return to neutral from 2024. Potential growth rises because we are investing much more and this should help us sustain higher growth. This must be our goal: it gives us more prosperity and ample margins to manage public finances ». The goal is to reverse the trend established in past years: «The real test is growth. We need to get out of the long period of economic stagnation. Employment rates are lower than our partners ».
What worries the owner of the Economy, however, are the costs of energy: “An issue that must be monitored and we must evaluate whether to do something at national and European level to mitigate this dynamic”. This is a “significant” issue, but the feeling is that “in the first half of next year it will diminish”. Franco also spoke about the bills issue: «To mitigate the impact of the price increases essentially for gas, the government intervened twice. Obviously the problem will arise again on January 1st next ».
The government estimates that the third quarter of 2021 closed with GDP growth of 2.2% and industrial production of around 1%. This was underlined by the Minister of Economy, Daniele Franco, during a hearing on Nadef in Parliament. At the end of the year, he reiterated, the economy will have recovered two thirds of what it lost in 2020: “In April we expected a growth of 4.5% of GDP, now an increase of 6%, therefore an increase of one point and a half. This is a very significant change: all forecasters are seeing the estimates of Italian economic growth up ”.
Franco also launches a warning: “If the pandemic ever resumes our forecasts would be at risk but the scenario we have outlined – without new restrictions on people and business activities – seems to us the most probable, and it is for all forecasters. “.
As for exports “they are doing very well, there has been a very positive dynamic and this has led us to strengthen the surplus compared to other countries, which remains above 3%,” said the minister.