Rome
Italy’s economy, the third largest in the eurozone, will only recover from its coronavairus-related slump at the end of next year, the national business lobby Confindustria said Saturday.
After a record fall of 8.9 percent last year — the biggest in Italy’s postwar history — gross domestic product (GDP) should expand by 4.1 percent this year and by 4.2 per cent in 2022, the association said.
“The economy should fill the hole created by the pandemic in 2020 at the end of 2022,” Confindustria said in an economic forecast report.
Confindustria’s forecasts were more optimistic than the International Monetary Fund’s, which last week predicted growth of 4.2 percent and 3.6 percent in 2021 and 2022.
A crucial part of the recovery rests on the success of its so-far struggling vaccination programme and on a vast injection of loans and grants from the European Union. —AFP
