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Italy is headed for zero economic growth in 2019, Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said Sunday, while brushing off possible changes to the government's budget. "We face a widespread slowdown in growth across Europe, and in Italy we are headed for zero" growth, Tria told an economic forum in Florence. Italy's central bank and the International Monetary Fund have both estimated that the eurozone's third-largest economy would expand by a meagre 0.6 percent this year, while the European Commission was more pessimistic, pencilling growth of just 0.2 percent.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, the Italian economy contracted owing to a slowdown in exports, plunging it into a technical recession and increasing the government's budgetary problems. But despite pressure from EU officials to maintain fiscal discipline, Tria said: "No one is asking us for a corrective manoeuvre, so I exclude that." The EU warned last week of a new row brewing with Italy over its budget, barely a few months after both sides agreed on a hard-fought deal with Rome's disputed 2019 finances.
Italy's public debt now sits at 2.3 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion), or 131 percent of Italy's GDP - way above the 60 percent EU ceiling.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2019

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