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| Italians Lack Confidence, Innovation: Report |
| Statistical bureau releases its latest annual report, casting a dark shadow on the country |
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Raffaele Mastrolonardo (raffo)  |
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Published 2005-05-31 17:44 (KST) |
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Italians did not have to wait until May 25 to know what they have felt for months. But now they can back up their feelings with the rigorous statistical data provided by the Italian National Statistics Institute (ISTAT)'s Annual Report released last Wednesday.
It's a somber picture painted by the Italian statistical bureau: a country experiencing "enduring stagnation" whose "public administrators, entrepreneurs and citizens" were not able to find "measures aimed at eliminating weak points and appreciating strong points."
Such a situation comes as no surprise as the latest confidence index by research institute ISAE fell to 84.2, the lowest since November 2001, as Bloomberg reported May 25, another sign of the "air of distrust" mentioned in the report.
On the macroeconomic front ISTAT confirms what the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other international organizations have been repeating: Italy is unable to keep up with the rest of Europe. Between 1995 and 2004, Italy experienced slower growth than her neighbors --1.6 percent per year compared to a less-than-excellent 2.2 percent for the EU.
Even worse, in the same period Italy's productivity advanced by a mere 0.5 percent while the productivity in other EU member countries reached 1.4 percent.
One of the reasons for these disappointing data could be Italy's longtime allergy to innovation, underlined by ISTAT. The weight of high and medium-high technology density sectors in the Italian economy, the report says, is a slim 36.8 percent compared to an EU average of 43.1 percent and 54 percent in Germany.
Further worries for Italian policymakers, according to ISTAT, come from exports. Over the years Italy's export market share fell from an all-time high of 4.7 percent in 1996 to a tiny 3.7 percent in 2004.
Now that the weapon of devaluation, so often used in the 1970s and 1980s to sell cheap goods abroad, has been erased by the advent of the euro, Italy seems unable to regain lost ground.
All these data are the symptoms of a confused country, full of "uncertainties about the future," according to ISTAT. Given this framework, it looks like a logical consequence, then, that one of the most evident problems in Italian society got worse in recent years: the number of people between ages of 25 and 34 who live with their parents rose to 34.9 percent (up from 25.8 percent in 1993). Is Italy more and more becoming a country of perennial children?
A piece of good news, in this ocean of desolation, comes from unemployment data. But even here, the feelings are mixed. Unemployment indeed fell to 8.0 percent, down 0.4 percent in 2003 and under the EU average. The ISTAT report, though, points out that, for the first time in nine years, the employment rate has decreased, due to an increase in resident population.
And then there are the controversial tax cuts introduced by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government with much fanfare in 2003 and 2005. According to ISTAT, in fact, of the 11 billion euro in cuts, 5.4 billion (more than half of the savings), benefited the richest third of households.
In a climate of uncertainty one thing at least is sure: In Berlusconi's Italy the rich get richer, while the rest of the country struggles.
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©2005 OhmyNews
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 Comments Note: Kindly refrain from personal attacks and profanity. |
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1. <UserText
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ikils , 2007-03-16 12:19
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