The little secret of Italian “Resilience” that they will almost never tell you
In recent days we have shown how the Italian PMI data is a little better than the German ones. Italy has emerged from the Covid crisis, from the lockdowns a little better than Germany. Not much, just a little, as these graphs show
Italian GDP growth
German GDP growth
In the first quarter of 2023, Germany even recorded a negative rate. The PMI data also show a slightly more vital Italy than Germany, which hasn't been seen for a while.
The government, quite rightly, boasts of these rather rare results, but what is the reason for this slight advantage over Germany? This is shown by the breakdown of the GDP data by sector
While the component linked to manufacturing (green line on the right) has not yet fully recovered and has not returned to pre-covid values. On the contrary, what drove Italy was above all the construction sector, followed by the sector…. agricultural. It almost feels like we've gone back to pre-industrial times, with the economy reliant on agriculture and construction. Even the public sector fails to provide a significant contribution, as well as commercial and tourism-related services.
Don't hear this figure in any newspaper because no one can admit that, for better or for worse, the stimulus to the construction sector deriving from the 110% has somehow worked in supporting GDP, much more than the meager measures in favor of manufacturing . Expect very negative data by the time the 110% has worn off and we'll return to the reality of decadent manufacturing.
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The article The little secret of Italian "Resilience" that they will almost never tell you comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-piccolo-segreto-della-resilienza-italiana-che-non-vi-diranno-quasi-mai/ on Thu, 27 Jul 2023 07:00:49 +0000.