6/10/2011 00:00:00
An average Italian family of three persons lost €10,000 of income compared to 2008. This declared the director of the Research Department of Confcommercio, Mariano Bella, illustrating the data on macroeconomic forecasts, the analysis of the evolution of regional GDP in recent years and the consumption indicator Confcommercio. "Compared to 2008 – said Bella – from liquid streams of income and wealth a family has €10,000 less.” The Research Department has lowered the estimates of GDP and consumption, "the weakening of the general economic climate and the effects of public finance measures, including the VAT increase push down forecast for GDP and consumption for both 2011 and 2012". This year the growth rate will amount to 0.7% (from the previous +0.8%) with a further slowing down in 2012 to +0.3% (from +1%). Consumption should grow by 0.7% (from +0.8%) in 2011 and 0.2% (from +1.1%) in 2012. Also investments are declining and should grow by 1.7% this year. In this case, the estimate remains unchanged, with 0.5% next year against the initial estimate of 1.9%. As for inflation, according to estimates from the Research Department, the index of consumer prices will rise to 3.2% from 3.1% in September, with a conjuncture increase of 0.4%.