Sometimes financial life comes at your quickly and at others it feels like it takes an age. The current Italian crisis has managed in typically Italian style to have covered nearly all bases as we note the main driver simply being lack of economic growth meaning on a per head basis economic output is lower than when the Euro began, But if we move to the current there was a development yesterday, and context can be provided by statements from the new government that economic growth of 3% per annum is possible. From Italian statistics.
In 2018, GDP is expected to increase by 1.1 percent in real terms.The domestic demand will provide a contribution of 1.3 percentage points while foreign demand will account for a negative 0.2 percentage point and inventories will provide a null contribution. In 2019, GDP is estimated to increase by 1.3 percent in real terms driven by the contribution of domestic demand (1.3 percentage points)
associated to a null contribution of the foreign demand and inventories.
The initial response was surprise that Istat had held the previous forecast at 1.4% for so long. After all the Italian economy had been slowing for a while in quarterly terms from the peak of 0.5% and as it had been following a Noah’s Ark two-by-two style policy might have been expected to be 0.2% this time around, Except of course it was 0% reducing the annual rate to 0.8% which is below the current forecast.
If we look at the detail we see that such as it is there seems to be a reliance on consumption.
In 2018, exports will increase by 1.6 percent and imports will grow by 2.6 percent, both are expected
to accelerate in 2019 (3.2% and 3.5% respectively). Residential households consumption expenditure
is expected to grow by 0.9 percent in 2018 accelerating in 2019 (1.2%). The stabilisation in employment and the wages increase will support households purchasing power. Investment are expected to progressively decelerate both in 2018 (+3.9) and in 2019 (+3.2%).
In itself the trade decline is not a big deal as Italy has a strong trade position but it does subtract from GDP. It also poses a question for the Euro area “internal devaluation” model. Also it is hard not to question where that investment is going? After all in collective terms the economy is not growing. So we are left with domestic consumption relying on this.
Labour market conditions will improve over the forecasting period. Employment growth is expected to stabilise at 0,9 percent in 2018 and in 2019. At the same time, the rate of unemployment will decrease at 10.5 percent in the current year and at 10.2 percent in 2019.
Will the labour market continue to improve with economic growth slowing and maybe stopping completely? Frankly the only reason to forecast a better 2019 is the planned fiscal stimulus which of course is where the whole issue comes in.
Along the way we can get a new perspective from the fact that if we put 2010 at 100 the Italian economy peaked above 102 in early 2008 and has now recovered to just above 97.
Excessive Deficit Procedure
In essence the Euro area is stalling on the application of the EDP as it is hoping there might be a change of tack. Also I would imagine that it does not want to prod the Italian crisis with Brexit also up in the air. But there is something quite revealing in yesterday’s documentation from the European Commission.
Italy made a sizeable fiscal effort between 2010 and 2013, raising the primary surplus to over 2% of GDP and exiting the excessive deficit procedure in 2013 by keeping its headline deficit at a level not above 3% of GDP as of 2012 (down from more than 5% in 2009).
The reality if we look at the pattern of GDP was that returning to 2010 as our benchmark Italian GDP which was recovering from the initial credit crunch shock and rallying from ~94 to ~97 turned south from early 2011 and fell to below 93. Back then the EC and its acolytes were claiming that this was an expansionary fiscal contraction whereas if we allow for the lags it hit the Italian economy hard. There have been various mea culpas ( IMF mostly) and redactions of history since. But not only did Italy struggle to recover as even now we are only back to the 97 level where in GDP terms it started from of course it was then benefiting from both fiscal and monetary policy. Or as Mario Draghi likes to put it.
an ongoing broad-based economic expansion
If we look back to my article from the 26th of October Italy is now being told that fiscal policy cannot help and may make things worse too. So Italians may reasonably be annoyed and sing along with All Time Low.
‘Cause I’m damned if I do ya, damned if I don’t
Things that will not improve their humour is that it is the same Olivier Blanchard pushing this who was in the van of arguing that a fiscal contraction would boost the economy. Also that Euro area rhetoric is making the situation of their bond market worse.
Bond Market
Back on the 2nd of October I noted that the benchmark ten-year yield for Italy had risen to 3.4% but that such things took time to have an impact on the real as opposed to financial economy. Well it is 3.47% as I type this and I note that @liukzilla calculated that this phase of higher yields will cost Italy around 6.6 billion Euros in higher debt costs. Care is needed as it is not something to pay now but say over the next ten years as interest is paid. But a rising problem.
The new government suggested that retail investors might surge into the market but they have bought less than one billion Euro’s of this week’s offer which is at best a damp squib. Of course there are the banks…
Italian banks
Did somebody mention the banks? They are of course stuffed full of Italian government bonds and you can see the state of play courtesy of @LiveSquawk.
Italy’s 5 Star Movement Has Proposed Measures To Allow Unlisted Banks And Insurers Not To Mark To Market Gvt Bonds – RTRS Sources.
Yes that bad. But the circus for banks carries on regardless it would appear as we move to Reuters.
Carige said Italian banks had guaranteed they would buy bonds worth 320 million euros, with a further 80 million euros earmarked for private investors, possibly including existing shareholders.
So the tin can gets another kick as we note that this weakens the other banks which participate.
Comment
Let me add another dimension provided courtesy of the Financial Times Magazine and let us first set the scene.
Mafia syndicates in Italy have an estimated annual turnover of €150bn, according to a report by the anti-Mafia parliamentary committee in 2017.
They have moved into agriculture as it seems like easy money and the economic crisis gave them an opportunity as whilst conventional business struggled they had cash.
With margins as high as 700 per cent, profits from olive oil, for example, can be higher than those from cocaine — and with far less risk.
Also it gives you clean money to which Michael Corleone would nod approvingly. Here is one route.
A Mafia family could claim about €1m a year in EU subsidies on 1,000 hectares, while leasing it for as little as €37,000. “With profit margins as high as 2,000 per cent, with no risk, why sell drugs or carry out robberies when you can just wait for the cheque to arrive in the post?” he says by telephone from his home.
Here is an even more unpleasant one.
In February last year, 42 members of the Piromalli clan in Calabria were arrested and 40 farms seized in connection with the export of counterfeit oil to the US, sold as extra virgin, which retails for at least €7 a litre. A number of those arrested are now in prison awaiting trial. According to police, about 50 per cent of all extra-virgin olive oil sold in Italy is adulterated with cheap, poor-quality oil. Globally the proportion is even higher.
Makes me wonder about the bottle of olive oil in my kitchen and the “made in Italy” spaghetti. It is all nearly as bad as the video of Patrice Evra and the chicken or perhaps we should say salmonella.