ROME: Business confidence in Italy rose almost to a four-year high as its biggest employers’ lobby said the economy will grow in 2015 at a faster pace than it previously estimated.
The gauge climbed in June to 103.9 from a revised 103.4 in May, the Rome-based national statistics agency Istat said on Friday. Economists predicted 103.8, according to the median of 12 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The Istat index is based on a poll of about 4,000 businesses.
In a separate report, employers’ association Confindustria revised up its forecast for the euro region’s third-biggest economy this year. The group said gross domestic product’s growth will accelerate in the second half, ensuring the country fully emerges from its longest recession on record.
Confindustria sees Italy’s GDP expanding 0.8 percent in 2015 and 1.4 percent in 2016, up from the 0.5 percent and 1.1 percent respectively that it estimated in December. The economy will take full advantage of the lower euro, the cheaper oil price and the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing, the lobby said.
“At mid-2015 the global scenario is still favorable for the Italian economy despite the marked slowdown in the global demand and the looming threat of a Greek bankruptcy,” Confindustria’s report said.
Still, industrial production unexpectedly fell in April, contrasting with signs of optimism in recent surveys, while the unemployment rate is stuck above 12 percent.
The June Italian business confidence reading was close to the 104 reached in April. That was the highest since May 2011.
