ROME: Italian President Sergio Mattarella in his New Year speech hailed all positive economic signs the country has seen in 2015 and stressed urgent need in deeper reforms for Italy to go on track in the future.
Noting too many young Italians are still without a job and the opportunities contribute to their own future and the country’s growth, Mattarella said employment is the priority. He pointed out that the employment has returned to growth, and this will help build confidence.
“The end of the economic recession and the recovery are further positive signs, but still have not been enough to put an end to the suffering of many families,” he said.
The president said job market and society were experiencing a major process of change. At the same time, “innovation is a challenge that concerns all of us, and competition requires quality, creativity, and investments,” he said.
Italy saw its first signs of economic recovery in 2015, after its longest post-war recession. The latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) models showed the Italian economy grew a modest 0.8 percent in 2015. If that holds, it means 2015 will be the first year Italy’s economy showed positive growth since advancing 0.6 percent in 2011, and the first time it grew in every quarter since 2007.
The economy has been through painful austerity measures since 2011, and is still struggling with an overall jobless rate at some 11 percent and over 39 percent among people under the age of 25.
“A return to modest growth, an improvement of employment levels and a stabilization of public finance are the results achieved by Italy in recent months,” Mariano Bella, director of the research department of Confcommercio, Italy’s largest confederation of enterprises, told Xinhua.
The Italian economy has registered positive signals in the first three quarters of 2015, he noted, with a 4.5-percent growth of exports, a 1.0-percent increase of household consumption and a 0.3-percent rise of investments. A labor reform and related tax advantages have pushed job increase.
All the improvements benefitted from a fall in oil prices, a weak dollar, an expected growth of global trade by around 3 percent in 2015 and the expansionary monetary policy of the European Central Bank, Bella said.