Confindustria, growth alarm: estimates halved for 2024 (+0.5%). Investment crisis, consumption holds steady
Confindustria revises “GDP growth downwards after the dangerous roller-coaster ride of the last 3 years”. And he warns: “The Italian economy is once again sliding towards the modest growth rates that had characterized it in previous decades”. In Italy, Investments are collapsing, only consumption and employment are holding up despite slowing down. GDP “advances by just 0.7% in 2023” and is “a change already fully achieved by mid-year”. The Confindustria study center specifies that “in 2024, on average it will be worse, +0.5%” (from the +1.2% estimated in March). It’s a “low growth driven almost entirely by family consumption”.
The “sharp slowdown” in GDP “is due to the negative effect of high interest rates on businesses and families, and to a negative dynamic, in the current year, of international trade”, note the economists of the research center in via dell ‘Astronomy, directed by Alessandro Fontana. Industrial production is in decline especially for energy-intensive sectors such as paper, chemicals, non-metallic metals and metallurgy, and those that fall within the construction supply chain such as wood and metal products. On the contrary, greater dynamism emerges for high-tech sectors such as pharmaceuticals and computer, electronics and electrical equipment activities.
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Family consumption appears “weak but resilient”: in the CSC analysis, family spending is almost at a standstill in the second half of 2023. It will increase again in 2024 (+0.6%), with more momentum in the second half of year, “in the wake of the decline in inflation and, therefore, the recovery of purchasing poweras well as driven by an improvement in economic conditions and a more sustained wage dynamic”.
Confindustria reiterates with its forecasts the alarm over “investments in a worrying decline. The push from construction and Industry 4.0 is diminishing”. The Pnrr “is crucial”. Gross fixed investments are seen as having a sharp slowdown from +9.7 in 2022 to +0.5% this year, and falling by -0.1% in 2024. The continuing restrictive tone of monetary policy weighs “above all” which is having a deeper impact than expected and will continue to have it for a longer period” but also the “smaller amount of investments made with the Pnrr compared to what was planned in the Def last April”. Foreign trade is “very weak“, with “a setback” in imports and exports in 2023 (+0.8%) and a gradual acceleration in 2024 (+2.3%). Def 2023″.
Pnrr: Visco: “There are postponements and difficulties, but the challenge is not lost”
“On the Pnrr we have some postponements, there are obstacles, difficulties but the challenge is not lost”. Thus the Governor of Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco, during the presentation of the Report of the Confindustria study center on the performance of the country’s economy.
“The impact of this plan in 2026 is 2-3 points of GDP but on the demand side. On the supply side however the points are 6: in 10 years therefore we will almost 10% if this plan allows on the one hand to make the infrastructures available to businesses but on the other with the reforms to give the possibility of making the best use of them. This is a crucial issue: the challenge is not lost,” he explains.
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