Italy's economy grew solidly by 0.6 percent in the first quarter, preliminary data showed on Thursday, offering good news for incoming prime minister Romano Prodi who is due to take office next week.
On a year-on-year basis, gross domestic product in the eurozone's third largest economy rose 1.5 percent, the strongest gain since the second quarter of 2001, national statistics institute ISTAT reported.
The first quarter data marked a sharp rebound from the last quarter of 2005 when GDP was flat compared with the previous three months. It was also slightly stronger than market expectations for 0.5 percent quarterly growth.
Publicly funded think-tank ISAE said in a statement that on the basis of its own leading indicators and industrial output forecasts it expected growth in the second quarter to be "not dissimilar" from the first.
Italy's 0.6 percent quarterly growth exactly matched the eurozone average, also reported on Thursday, although on a year-on-year basis Italy's 1.5 percent rate remained behind the eurozone's 2.0 percent.
Centre-left leader Prodi won last month's general election by a whisker, largely due to voter dissatisfaction with an economy, which had barely grown in five years under Silvio Berlusconi's government.
Italy has underperformed its main partners over the last decade, a trend which analysts expect will continue this year.
ISTAT gave no numerical breakdown of first quarter growth components with its preliminary data but said the quarterly rise stemmed from an increase in industrial and service sector activity, while agriculture contracted.
Industrial output for March, released earlier on Thursday, slipped 0.1 percent from February, but average output in the first quarter was still up 1.4 percent.
Italian manufacturing has been in recession for the last five years, a negative run which most analysts expect will finally come to an end this year.
Comments
Comments are closed.