Italy Financial News

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - Sales of new cars in Italy rose by 15.6% in October compared to 6.8% in September, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) said Monday.

Sales across Europe were 11.2% up compared to a rise of 6.3% in September, ACEA said.

ACEA measures sales from the 27 European Union members plus the four members of the European Free Trade Organisation: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

It also measures sales from western Europe: 15 EU members plus the EFTA four.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 16 - Italy's inflation rate rose to 0.3% in October from 0.2% in September, Istat said Monday, confirming a preliminary estimate.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - The Italian economy grew by 0.6% in the third quarter of 2009 after five straight quarterly drops, national statistics bureau Istat said Friday.

Italy's 0.6% GDP growth compared to 0.9% in the United States, 0.7% in Germany and 0.3% in France, Istat said.

For Germany and France it was the second quarterly rise.

Britain's GDP fell by 0.4% and Spain's by 0.3% in the third quarter.

European Union growth also rose for the first time in 15 months, by 0.4% in the third quarter, Eurostat said in Brussels.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 13 - Italy's public debt in September set a new record, climbing to 1.7868 trillion euros from 1.7575 in August, the Bank of Italy said on Friday.

With the exception of June, when it dipped slightly, Italy's debt has been setting consecutive records since last February.

The Bank of Italy also reported that due to the recession tax revenue for the first nine months of the year had fallen by 3.5% over the same period last year.

In August, the eight-month drop was 2.5%. photo: Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi

(ANSA) - Rome, November 11 - Some 70% of Italians do not consider their income sufficient to meet their needs, a percentage which is twice that of 1990, according to a report presented Wednesday at the University of Rome.

The report also found that welfare and social security coverage were insufficient and that only one third of the country's unemployed were drawing income support.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 11 - Over 50,000 shops and small businesses closed down in the first nine months of 2009 year and by the end of year there will be 20,000 more shops going out of business than starting up, according to the national retailers association Confcommercio.

With more small businesses shutting down, observed Confcommercio chief Carlo Sangalli, "the number of people with jobs in retailing will decline by 130,000 this year and 180,000 in 2010".

(ANSA) - Brussels, November 11 - The European Commission on Wednesday gave Italy until the end of 2012 to lower its budget deficit to 3% in accordance with the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).

The formal 'recommendation' had been expected and also saw the European Union executive tell Italy to reduce its massive public debt, the third-largest in the world after the United States and Japan.

In order to bring its deficit belong 3%, the EC said Italy must adopt already in its 2010 budget measure capable of lowering the deficit by 0.5% of GDP over a three-year period.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 10 - High food prices continue to penalize the world's poor despite a boost in world food production, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported Tuesday.

The organization said that a bumper year for world cereal production has failed to bring prices down in nations dependent on food imports, cementing famine and food shortages in the world's 31 poorest countries.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 10 - A vast majority of Italians do not believe the economic crisis has peaked and are afraid that the worst may yet come in regard to employment, according to a study carried out by the ISPO research group for the national retail services association Confesercenti.

The study found that 87% of Italians do not believe the economic situation has turned around, while 94% are afraid about the employment situation.

Almost 20% of Italians said that someone in their family had lost their job or been temporarily laid off.

(ANSA) - Palermo, November 10 - Police in Palermo on Tuesday seized assets worth some 15 million euros traced back to two dead bosses. The real estate, land and shops were fronts for the empire of the late Francesco Madonia, who died in jail in 2007, and Francesco Di Trapani, who died in 1992, police said.

The pair were respectively head and No.2 of one of the Sicilian capital's most powerful families.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 10 - Industrial output in Italy rose 4% in the third quarter over the previous three-month period, the highest quarterly rise since 1990, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Tuesday.

However, output for the first nine months of the year was down 20.3% over the same period in 2008, Istat added.

Output for September was down 5.3% from August, the biggest month-on-month drop since 1990, and was 15.7% below September of last year, Istat said.

Motor vehicle production in the first nine months of the year sank 29.5% over the same period in 2008.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - A major new drive to make it cheaper for immigrants to send cash back home was unveiled at an international conference here on Monday.

The meeting, hosted by Italy in its capacity as this year's Group of Eight president, is working on a roadmap to halve fees for remittances.

''The average cost of 9.7% is already far too high, and this figures rises to as much as 25% in areas where there is little competition, such as Africa,'' said Janamitra Devan, head of the financial and private sector development division at the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - A major new drive to make it cheaper for immigrants to send cash back home was unveiled at an international conference here on Monday.

The meeting, hosted by Italy in its capacity as this year's Group of Eight president, is working on a roadmap to halve fees for remittances.

''The average cost of 9.7% is already far too high, and this figures rises to as much as 25% in areas where there is little competition, such as Africa,'' said Janamitra Devan, head of the financial and private sector development division at the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

(ANSA) - Brussels, November 9 - The European Commission is expected to formally tell Italy on Wednesday that it must bring its budget deficit below 3% of GDP by mid-2012, ANSA learned from sources at the European Union executive on Monday.

The formal letter is said to have set a deadline of June 2, 2010 for Italy to adopt ''efficient budget measures'' and other actions to reduce its deficit.

A month ago the EC said it had opened procedures against Italy and eight other European Union countries for adopting budgets with excessive deficits.

(ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - A major new drive to make it cheaper for immigrants to send cash back home was unveiled at an international conference here on Monday.

The meeting, hosted by Italy in its capacity as this year's Group of Eight president, is working on a roadmap to halve fees for remittances.