Italy's growth stagnated in the third quarter of 2018, official data showed Tuesday, upping the pressure on the country's populist government which has based its big-spending budget plan on an optimistic outlook for economic expansion. Rome was not alone: the pace of eurozone economic expansion also slowed significantly in the third quarter.
Italy's gross domestic product (GDP) was unchanged between July and September, the national institute of statistics said, as both domestic demand and trade flows failed to spur any growth. Growth in the eurozone's third biggest economy over the first nine months of the year was 1.0 percent.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte shrugged off concerns, saying the slowdown "was expected", and the government's plan to increase the deficit to 2.4 percent of annual economic output in 2019 was necessary to avoid a recession. But the country's business association Confindustria immediately blamed the populists, saying "if growth stops it will be the fault of this government and no-one else".
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