Inflation will not return to 2% until 2025, in the meantime the Italian economy will return to stagnation with growth reduced to a few decimal places. And with the risk of a prolonged recession, in case Russia shuts off the gas completely. This is what emerges from the Economic Bulletin of the Bank of Italy which raises the estimate for GDP in 2022 which would have risen by 3.9% while, for 2023, the economy will slow down to +0.6%, a few points more in any case of +0.4% expected in December and +0.3% in October. For 2024, however, the estimate is “corrected slightly downwards (+1.2%) due to a more contained increase in consumption”. Under an adverse scenario with a halt in energy supplies from Russia, GDP would shrink by almost 1 percent in both 2023 and 2024 and grow moderately in 2025.
On the other hand, the inflation estimates for 2023 have been confirmed, which will slow down from 9% this year to 6.5%, while in 2024 he revises the forecasts upwards by three tenths to 2.3%: in 2025 the slowdown will be stronger , at 2%. In the autumn months of last year, underlines the Bank of Italy, “inflation reached new highs, driven by the energy component which is still being transmitted to the prices of other goods and services and is causing a moderate strengthening of core inflation ». The trend in consumer prices continued to be mitigated by energy measures. According to Bankitalia, “the first signs of an easing of inflationary pressures emerge in the expectations of households and businesses”.
In particular, the high cost of energy is responsible for over two thirds of inflation in Italy: “The increases in energy – we read – have markedly affected the general price index” and the “reactivity of the prices of industrial goods does not energy and services is statistically significant, but quantitatively modest; the prices of foodstuffs, on the other hand, show a higher sensitivity, as well as being typically more volatile».
To complicate the situation, there is a salary dynamic that in Italy remains contained and for 2023 “would accelerate moderately, partly mitigated by the continuation of the negotiation processes in some private service sectors, where the share of employees awaiting renewal is still high (about 67% in November)”. In the Bulletin of Palazzo Koch we read that «in the summer the growth in hourly wages in the economy as a whole was in fact equal to 1.8% compared to the same period of the previous year, 1.5 points less than in the second quarter”. The agreements signed in the second half of 2022 in the electricity, gas and water and insurance sectors resulted in average increases of between 2 and 3 percent per year, broadly in line with the trend in the harmonized index of consumer prices net of imported energy goods forecast by Istat. In trade, recalls the central institution, a bridging agreement was signed in December, which provides for the disbursement of a one-off payment and a slight increase in wages starting next April, pending the definitive renewal.