The Italian economy should grow by more than 5% this year

The Italian economy is expected to grow by more than 5% this year. The Italian central bank said this on Friday, which slightly improved the June forecast. On the contrary, in the case of next year, the central bank slightly worsened the growth forecast.

The central bank said that Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP) should grow by 5.1% this year. In a previous estimate released by the bank a month ago, it expected growth of 4.9 to 5%. By comparison, last year the economy contracted by 8.9%, the most significant decline in the Italian economy since the end of World War II.

Next year, the central bank expects the economic growth rate to slow to 4.4%. This means a slight deterioration of the forecast compared to the June estimate, which spoke of a slowdown in growth to 4.5%.

As for inflation, according to the central bank, it should remain subdued in the coming years. The bank expects harmonized consumer prices to increase by 1.5% year on year this year and to slow to 1.3% next year. At this level, the harmonized inflation rate should then remain in 2023.

The unemployment rate is expected to average 10.5% this year. In 2022, the central bank expects a decline to 10.3% and the following year to reduce unemployment to 9.9%.

Written by Paula Antle