GDP, Svimez: the South grows above the national average (+0.9%)
There Svimez estimate one Italy’s GDP growth of +0.9% in 2023, slowing down from +4% in 2002, but still above the EU average (+0.4%). The product dynamics was heterogeneous between macro-areas and Italian regions. In 2023, the growth of the GDP of the southern regions was higher than that of the other macro-areas: +1.3% against +1% of the North-West+0.9% in the North-East and +0.4% in the Centre. The South has not grown more than the rest of the country since 2015 (+1.4% against +0.6% in the Centre-North). The employment trend was equally favorable in the South. Those employed in the South increased by +2.6% on an annual basis, more than in the other macro-areas and against a national average of +1.8%.
The more pronounced growth of the southern GDP, underlines Svimez, was supported above all by the buildings (+4.5%, almost one percentage point more than the average for the Centre-North), compared to a more limited contraction in industrial sector (-0.5%) and one services growth of 1.8%. GDP dynamics were weak in the Central regions (+0.4%), less than half the national average. A more than double decline in industrial added value contributed to this result compared to the national average (-2.6%; -1.1% the Italian figure) and a growth in services that stopped at +1.1% (+1.6% the national average), which sterilized the good dynamics of construction (+6.2%).
In the North-West GDP growth of 1%Svimez notes, was conditioned by the decline in industrial added value (-1.4%) and by the much more contained growth of the national construction average (+2.5%). In the North Eastit was above all the flat dynamics of industrial added value that limited GDP growth +0.9%. THE adverse climatic factors that characterized much of the year penalized agriculture. The sector’s added value decreased in all areas of the country, with the exception of the North-West (+6.4% after the sharp decline in 2022): -6.1% in the Centre, -5.1% in the North-East, -3.2% in the Southor. The result of the two macro areas is also due to the different contribution of foreign demand. In the Centre-North, the stalemate in exports (-0.1% on 2022) has deprived local economies of a traditional driving force in the cyclical recovery phases. In the South, vice versa, the increase in exports of goods, net of the energy componentit led to the +14.2% (+16.7% capital goods; +26.1% non-durable goods).
The 2023 economic situation takes place in the post-Covid recovery phase that began in 2021 which saw the South actively participate in national growth, placing itself stably above the EU average growth (+0.4% in 2023). The cumulative growth data of GDP 2019-2023 of +3.7% in the South it exceeded the similar figure of Northwest (+3.4%) and, above all, that of the central regions (+1.7%). He contributed to averting the opening of the North-South growth gap by observing, in previous phases of cyclical recovery, the unprecedented markedly expansionary tone of budget policy.
“Svimez estimates on the GDP of the Southwhich grew more in 2023 than what happened in the rest of the country, confirm the validity of the approach given by the Draghi government to development policies for the South. The strategic choice to allocate at least 40% of the Pnrr resources to the South, the public investment plan launched thanks to the Pnrr itself and other European and national funds, the reform and strengthening of the SEZs, the institutional development contracts signed have evidently worked. It means that we have sown well, that the planning and programming work we have done has borne fruit that is ripening over time”. So Mara Carfagnapresident of Azione ed former Minister for the South and Territorial Cohesion.
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