Italy’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose 0.1% in the first three months of 2022 compared to the previous quarter, improving the provisional data published in April that had forecast a drop of 0 .2%, reported today the Italian National Institute of Statistics (Istat).
These are much better data than both the Government and the Bank of Italy had initially estimated, since the Italian economy was expected to contract by at least 0.5% between January and March of this year compared to the last quarter of 2021, due to high inflation, lower household consumption and the negative contribution of foreign demand.
Istat pointed out that this revision of 0.3 percentage points, “although significant, is not an absolute exception in this period still affected by the pandemic.”
While compared to the same quarter last year, the Italian economy increased by 6.2%, also correcting upwards the 5.8% rise that had been calculated in the preliminary data for April.
Compared to the previous quarter, national consumption decreased by 0.6%, compared to a 3.9% increase in gross fixed investment, and imports and exports grew by 4.3% and 3.5%, respectively.
Positive economic trends were recorded in agriculture and industry, which grew by 1.8% and 0.5% respectively, while services decreased by 0.1%.
The Italian Statistical Institute estimated that there will be GDP growth in 2022 of 2.6%, also improving on past forecasts of a 2.2% increase.
In 2021 the Italian economy grew by 6.6%, after the decline of 8.9% in 2020 due to the pandemic.