In a scenario in which “the duration of the war is a crucial variable”, and assuming that uncertainty and tensions end or diminish from July, the Confindustria Study Center estimates GDP growth in 2022 halved to + 1.9% “with a ‘broad downward revision (-2.2 points) ”compared to the estimates of last October. Considering the + 2.3% growth acquired for “the excellent rebound of last year”, Italy “would thus enter a technical recession, albeit of limited size”. The return to pre-Covid levels “slips from the second quarter of this year to the first of the next”.
Numbers that “scare” says the number one of the industrialists, Carlo Bonomi, according to which they give “substance to a growing alarm, and unfortunately unheard, that Confindustria began to launch even before the war, when a slowdown was already seen”.
According to the Association’s Study Center, “in the first half of 2022, when the negative effects of the war will fully unfold, the Italian economy” would enter “a technical recession with a drop of 0.2% and 0.5% in the first two quarters ».
The economists of Confindustria, however, have also outlined “an adverse scenario, should the conflict extend until December 2022” and a third “severe scenario, in the hypothesis, further worsening, that the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues until end of next year “. A prolongation of the conflict “would reflect above all on the prices of energy goods, in particular gas and oil, and of some agricultural commodities, but also on the correct functioning of global value chains and international trade, on the confidence of operators through the channel of uncertainty and on the financial markets “.
In the “adverse scenario”, the growth of the Italian economy would stop at + 1.6% in 2022 and at + 1% in 2023 against the 1.6% estimated today. In the “severe scenario”, GDP growth is limited to + 1.5% in 2022 and retreats (-0.1%) in 2023.
Energy
“The price increases of oil, gas and coal are increasing the costs of businesses”, Confindustria warns again, with the Centro Studi in via dell’Astronomia which estimates “an increase in the Italian energy bill of 5.7 billion on a monthly basis , or in a higher cost of 68 billion on an annual basis. Businesses have so far largely absorbed these cost increases in their margins, even canceling them in some cases “but the impact” is not sustainable. For this reason, several companies are reducing or stopping production, or plan to do so in the coming months ».
Ukraine crisis
«Another impact of the war derives from sanctions and counter-sanctions», says the Confindustria Research Center, which calculates: «The direct impact of the sanctions on Russia on Italian exports is modest overall. The block relates to 686 million euros of sales in Russia, equal to 8.9% of Italian exports to the country, which in turn represents 1.5% of total Italian exports. What is worrying is that there are some specific Italian products (for example some machinery) for which the weight of the Russian market exceeds 10% ».
Prices
Among the “actions that companies are exploring to cope with the difficulties created or in some cases exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict”, a Confindustria survey to which 1,980 member companies replied shows that “almost 90% (87%) indicated the revision of the sale prices “; and “the percentage is high, just under 70%, even for non-internationalized ones”. Among other possible actions, the search for new supply markets (53%) and new alternative destination markets (26%), subsidized loans (26%), reshaping of work shifts (22%). Among the “main problems”, for 93% of the companies surveyed there is the increase in the cost of energy, then the increase in cost (89.5%) and the difficulty of supplying (78.8%) of the raw material. The companies that indicated “difficulties linked to their own productive settlements in the countries involved” by the conflict are 7.2%.