The programmatic growth will reach 1% in 2023 and the deficit will settle at 4.5%. These are the new estimates by the Government which in the Def will assume a trend scenario which sees the GDP at 0.9% and the deficit at 4.35%. For 2024, the GDP, again in the programmatic framework, will be more substantial (+1.4%) and debt will stand at “over 3%”. In the meantime, the debt will continue a slow reduction process until it settles “in 2025 at 140.9%”. However, the watchword is “prudence”. Because the unknowns between now and the end of the year remain many, and 2024 – with the return of the rules of the Stability Pact – will be complicated for everyone. For this reason, the government will present tomorrow with the first economic and financial document signed by Giorgia Meloni and Giancarlo Giorgetti a framework based on caution which, having shelved the risk of recession for the moment. In any case, growth will be stronger than the 0.6% expected with the Nadef. And a deficit of 4.35%, still high compared to the fateful 3% but down on previous estimates. However, that 4.5% would remain within the programmatic framework, to start designing a space for action (2-3 billion per hour) for the economic policy choices that will be adopted with the next manoeuvre.
Immediately after the launch of the Def, the Economy Minister will fly to Washington for the week of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund. Global growth is also affected by geopolitical tensions, as will emerge from the spring meetings of the World Bank and the IMF which will release their spring forecasts on Wednesday. The world economy – the director general of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva has already anticipated – will grow by less than 3% in 2023: economic activity is slowing down in the United States and in the euro area, where interest rates think about demand. And precisely low growth “makes it more difficult to reduce poverty, heal the scars of the Covid crisis and offer new and better opportunities for everyone”. However, Italy will continue to grow, according to the government, despite the various uncertainties related to the war in Ukraine, the overheating of consumer prices driven by energy prices, with oil prices soaring recently after the OPEC+ decision to cut the production of crude oil precisely to stop the fall in international prices. An overall situation that continues to push central banks to tighten the cost of money by raising interest rates and that the International Monetary Fund will photograph this week with the release of spring forecasts which should in any case see a contracting world GDP, with growth total of 3%. A situation that of the tightening on the cost of money that still does not seem to ease.
The confirmation also comes from Pablo Hernandez de Cos, governor of the Banco de Espana and member of the ECB Council who explains: “The ECB will continue to raise rates if its most recent inflation forecasts materialise”. This even as “some components of core inflation” are starting to show signs of stabilising. Similar signals are also coming from the Fed: it will continue with the rate hikes. Swap trends indicate that there is more than an 80% chance of a 0.25% rate hike in May. On the Italian situation, another tile could complicate the growth path: the Stability Pact from January 2024 should be reactivated after the suspension due to the pandemic. Despite an indication from Brussels of a debt reduction of 0.5% per year, Germany is pushing for a double commitment: 1% per year. Negotiations are underway, together with the parallel game that Rome is playing on Pnrr funds, which if misused would not guarantee the economic boost and an industry, beyond the various local criticalities, still strongly influenced by the trend in production prices. And another uncertainty appears on the horizon: the water crisis could in fact seriously affect agricultural production. Meanwhile, the Bank of Italy certifies a situation of slight recovery at the beginning of the year.
Source: Ansa
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