(Telestock) – The second quarter is confirmed as not at all brilliantbut with a upward forecast estimate of the cyclical variation in gross domestic product from -0.1% to +0.1%. Three elements are at the basis of this upward revision: consumption, driven by private car registrations in June, the good trend of industrial production in May (+0.5%) and, again for the May, a favorable evaluation of tourist presence on Italian territory. This is what emerges from the Confcommercio July economic report.
All things considered – it reads – the 2024 GDP forecast remains unchanged at +0.9%the result of two semesters that were substantially equal in terms of trend variation. In fact, the +0.1% cyclical implies a 1% trend growth in the second quarter of the year which, systemically with the trend of +0.7% in the first quarter, provides a growth just under 1%. A similar result would be expected for the second half of the year which, however, would open with a marginally negative July (-0.1% cyclical and +0.7% trend).
The Business confidence climate maintained in Junewith the sole exception of construction operators, in negative territory with limited expectations of improvement for the coming months. The more favorable attitude shown by families, whose sentiment has strengthened for the second consecutive month, is struggling to translate into concrete increases on the demand side.
The consumption, overall, they remain fragile, apart from the incentive effect on the auto sector. In the ICC metric in June, the growth on an annual basis was 0.9%, but if we look at the second quarter as a whole, we see a stagnation that involves both services and
assets. The growth in the volume of savings in the first quarter of the year suggests that there is a widespread need for households to rebuild the stock of accumulated savings that supported consumption last year and that must now be restored for precautionary purposes. It is
presumable that only in the final months of 2024 sa slight improvement in demand could be observed, as a result of more favourable dynamics on the real disposable income side. In this perspective, the persistence of inflation in July at historically high levels
contents, represents a positive signal: our indication is of a cyclical variation of 0.2% and of a growth of 1.0% in the annual comparison, slightly increasing on June. It should also be taken into account that in the most recent periods the dynamics of food prices, to which families are particularly attentive, are rapidly approaching the general data.
For the near futuretherefore, the winning game that would lead to avoiding a “blood, sweat and tears” maneuver in the fall depends on the stabilization of inflation around or below 1% combined with the maintenance of the current statistically record employment levels.
Should investments from the PNRR exceed expectations, the possibility of exceed 1% growth already this year. Given the variability of the economic picture, it is not advisable to make bets.