Istat had to downgrade the estimate published on July 31: the 0.3% contraction expected for the Italian economy fell by 0.4%. A more abrupt slowdown than expected, especially compared to data for the same quarter last year.
The accompanying growth is consequently slower and corresponds to 0.4% compared to the +0.6% forecast again on July 31 last year.
In the second quarter of the year, the Italian economy therefore underperformed the European average and the main partners. Compared to the -0.4% of the Italian economy – Istat recalls – GDP grew cyclically in the United States by 0.6%, in France by 0.5% and remained stable in Germany.
Trending: compared to +0.4% in Italy, the US saw growth of 2.6% and France of 0.9%, while Germany saw a fall of 0.1%. Overall, the GDP of the euro area countries grew by 0.3% quarter on quarter and by 0.6% compared to the second quarter of 2022.
The acquired variant of Italian GDP For 2023 it is +0.7% based on the updated data for the second quarter (originally forecast +0.8%). Profit is the change in GDP that would be achieved if there were no cyclical change in the remaining quarters of the year.
GDP falls due to domestic demand, poor consumption and investment
The fall in GDP in the second quarter of the year was mainly driven by developments in domestic demand (including inventories), while external demand made no contribution: domestic demand excluding inventories reduced the change in GDP by 0.7 percentage points. The contribution of private consumption and private social security was also zero, that of gross fixed capital formation was -0.4 and that of public administration expenditure was -0.3. Inventories made a positive contribution (up 0.3 percentage points). Finally, the contribution of net foreign demand was zero.
Compared to the previous quarter, all major domestic demand aggregates declined, with national final consumption falling by 0.3% and gross fixed capital formation falling by 1.8%. Imports and exports also fell, each by 0.4%.
You register negative economic trends for the added value across all major manufacturing sectors, with agriculture, industry and services declining 1.3%, 1.4% and 0.1% respectively.