(Finance) – For theParliamentary Budget Office the government’s economic forecasts on the domestic and international scenario presented in the latest Economic and Financial Document are acceptable. “The PBO’s macroeconomic projections do not differ significantly from those of the Government, but are more cautious – underlined the PBO in the Report on budget policy –. The PBO expects a GDP expansion of 0 for this year, 8 percent, an acceleration in 2025 to1.1 percent and subsequently a slowdown”. According to updated estimates from the PBO – he added -, the full and timely implementation of the interventions envisaged by the PNRR would lead to a higher GDP level of around three percent, at the end of the period, compared to the scenario of basic.
The PBO publishes a report every year that illustrates the trends recent and the perspectives of the Italian economy and public finance and some insights sectoral. Since this year marks the tenth anniversary of the PBO’s activities, the perspective of the analyzes has also been developed in relation to the period 2014-2023, with thematic insights concerning the retrospective analysis of the Italian economy and public finance, the evolution of taxation on families and businesses, that of pensions and employment and the recent policies for long-term care in Italy. After the institutional greetings, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs spoke Paul Gentlemen and the Minister of Economy and Finance Giancarlo Giorgetti.
“The global context is uncertain and fragile – underlined the PBO –. The expectations on international exogenous variables of the Government’s forecast documents are acceptable but are exposed to risks that are difficult to control, deriving mainly from geopolitical tensions and ongoing wars”. The Italian economy last year decelerated to 0.9 percent, a pace which is however higher than that of the twenty years pre-pandemic and to that recorded in the euro area, for the third consecutive year – added Nei first three months of 2024 the GDP of the Italian economy increased by 0.3 percent in economic terms but in the current quarter the phase cyclical it would get worse; the persistent weakness of the industry would also have been added to the slowdown in construction, following the remodulation of the incentives for the residential sector”.
The report highlighted that the deficit from the Public administrations in 2023 it was equal to 7.4 percent of GDP, in
reduction compared to the previous year, but still high for the fourth consecutive year. For the third consecutive year, the ratio continued to decline debt public and the GDP, which stood at 137.3 percent, 17.6 percentage points less than the peak recorded in 2020. Under current legislation (therefore not considering the renewal of some measures that expire in 2024), the public deficit would decrease significantly in the current year, to 4.3 percent of GDP.
The PBO noted that the tightening on Super bonus had a favorable effect on the deficit “which was brought back to the programmatic values of the NADEF 2023, equal to 3.6 percent of GDP in 2025 and 2.9 in 2026. The ratio between public debt and GDP is expected to increase until 2026, when it would reach the 139.8 percent, and then reduced by two tenths of a point in 2027; the debt profile is significantly affected by the huge tax compensations linked to the tax incentives for the construction sector in recent years”.