Italy Financial News

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Italy's year-on-year inflation rate rose for the third month in a row in October after leveling out at zero in July, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Friday.

Compared to October 2008, Istat said, prices rose 0.3%, up from 0.2% in September, while the consumer price index in one month inched up 0.1%, falling 0.2% in September over August.

Should current trends continue for the rest of the year, Istat added, Italy would have an annual inflation rate of 0.7% for 2009.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Extending current green 'cash-for-clunkers' incentives through next year will ensure that new car sales will stay above two million in 2010, the association of foreign car dealers UNRAE said on Friday.

''Without the incentives, sales next year will fall to between 1.7 and 1.8 million, the original forecast for 2009, instead of the over two million they have allowed for this year,'' UNRAE Director General Gianni Filipponi said.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Italian Junior Economy Minister Adolfo Urso will lead a delegation of representatives from 60 Italian firms as well as sector organisations on a visit to Cuba next week, a ministry statement said on Friday.

The delegation will be in Havana to take part in the inauguration of the Italian pavilion at the Cuba International Trade Fair.

While in Cuba, Urso, who holds the portfolio for foreign trade, will meet with members of the Italian business community there as well as Cuban government officials responsible for the economy and trade.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Italy's popular SuperEnalotto game continues to offer the world's biggest jackpot, although it is still far from the European record of 147.8 million euros it set over two months ago.

Saturday's draw will see 80.2 million euros up for grabs, while Europe's EuroMillions game is offering 77 million euros and America's PowerBall pot is a distant third at almost 35.8 million euros.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Italy's year-on-year inflation rate rose for the third month in a row in October after leveling out at zero in July, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Friday.

Compared to October 2008, Istat said, prices rose 0.3%, up from 0.2% in September, while the consumer price index in one month inched up 0.1%, falling 0.2% in September over August.

Should current trends continue for the rest of the year, Istat added, Italy would have an annual inflation rate of 0.7% for 2009.

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, October 29 - Italian police on Thursday seized 20 million euros in assets thought to belong to the 'Ndrangheta mafia in Calabria.

Private clinics, beauty salons, fast cars and motorcycles were among property confiscated from mobsters arrested last summer in a major drugs bust.

The operation in July netted over 49 people, 13 of them foreigners, involved with international trafficking for the 'Ndrangheta.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - The Italian government is examining ways to help small businesses obtain and manage credit once the current one-year moratorium on loan payments expires, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Thursday.

In an address marking World Savings Day, the minister explained that ''we are thinking about one or more assistance funds, the structure of which need to be compatible with the market''.

The moratorium, he added, ''was good but it is not enough''.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - While the global economic free-fall appears to have stopped, it is not for certain that a long-lasting recovery has began, Bank of Italy Governor Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

In an address marking World Savings Day, Draghi explained that a real recovery needed to be ''based on factors other than special economic policy measures'' adopted to deal with the crisis.

(ANSA) - Reggio Calabria, October 29 - Italian police on Thursday seized 20 million euros in assets thought to belong to the 'Ndragheta mafia in Calabria.

Police said they confiscated property around Italy from the southern region of Calabria to the northwestern region of Piedmont, in addition to Lazio, the region around Rome.

Regarded by some as the strongest and most impenetrable of Italy's mafias, the 'Ndragheta's power base mainly derives from its domination of the European cocaine market.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - Italian women lead one out of three agricultural firms in the country, a study by farmers' union Coldiretti revealed Thursday.

According to the report, women run nearly 260,000 agricultural business in Italy, the second leading sector for female business owners behind commercial services.

Over one in five women entrepreneurs work in the agriculture sector, added the organization whICH said the number is bound to increase.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - Italy's economy has entered a slow recovery and Italians have good reason to be optimistic about the future, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Thursday.

In a message marking 'Savings Day', the premier said ''the worst part of the financial crisis would appear to be behind us and, while slow, a recovery has begun''.

''There are many reasons for Italians to be optimistic and they can now overcome that attitude which has been defined as 'static' pessimism,'' he added.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - Gross income for Italian households, as well as individuals and small businesses, fell 1% in the second quarter of 2009, over the first quarter, equal to some 11 billion euros, national statistics bureau Istat reported on Wednesday.

Household purchasing power also slipped by 1% from the first to second quarter and was down 1.2% from the second quarter of last year, Istat added.

The decline in household income, Istat observed, resulted in a 0.4% decline in families putting away savings and a 0.5% drop in spending.

(ANSA) - Geneva, October 28 - Swiss authorities on Wednesday summoned Rome's ambassador to Bern to explain the raids carried out by Italian finance police on 76 branches of Swiss banks in Italy on Tuesday, a government spokesman said.

Swiss Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin defined the actions by the Finance Guard, backed up by revenue service agents, as ''a discriminatory act'' and said his government was ''concerned'' over the raids, the Swiss ATS news agency reported.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - Immigrants are a major help to Italy's national pension system and an important source of tax revenue, Catholic charity Caritas said Wednesday.

According to the organization, foreign workers pump over 7 billion euros per year into the national retirement fund and pay the government 3.2 billion euros in income taxes.

The organization predicted that just one in 25 foreign residents will be in retirement ten years from now compared to one in five Italians.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 28 - Confidence in Italy's manufacturing sector rose this month, making up losses recorded in September and rising to its highest level since September of last year, the Treasury's economic think-tank reported in Wednesday.

The Institute for Economic Study and Analysis (ISAE) said its index for confidence in the manufacturing sector climbed from 74.3 points last month to 77.1 for October.