The statistics will be adjusted slightly later this month after some lagging indicators are added to the database. But 2020 will easily go down as Italy's worst single year of economic growth since the end of World War II.
It was an up-and-down year for the economy, based on data from the institute, best known by its Italian-language initials, ISTAT.
The preliminary information shows a 5.5-percent drop quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter of the year when the pandemic was first reported in Italy, and a further 13-percent drop in the second quarter, which saw most of the country under lockdown. But in the third quarter, the economy grew 16 percent -- the largest single quarter of growth since the 1940s -- before contracting 2 percent over the final three months of the year.
Still, the final tally was stronger than most prognostications, which predicted a full-year contraction of between 8.5 and 10 percent. The Italian government's 2021 budget, passed in December, based its calculations on a 9-percent economic contraction for 2020 as a whole.
Corriere Della Sera, the country's largest newspaper, called ISTAT's data "slightly better" than estimates and a "hopeful sign" for a struggling economy. The Globalist, meanwhile, said the data were "disastrous, but less disastrous than everyone feared."
Most estimates are that the economy will rebound to grow between 2.5 and 6 percent this year -- an unusually wide range. But economists say a lot of the growth picture for 2021 will depend on the country's vaccine rollout program and how quickly the country's main trading partners will recover. As of the start of 2021, China is the lone country among Italy's largest trading partners showing positive economic growth.
The final full-year economic growth figures for 2020 are scheduled to be released in late February.
Latest comments