(ANSA) - ROME, SEPTEMBER 04 - Italy's GDP, due to the Covid emergency "has returned to the levels observed at the beginning of 1993. In per capita terms, GDP fell to the values recorded at the end of the 1980s".
This was stated by the governor of the Bank of Italy Ignazio Visco, remotely intervening at ESOF 2020, underlining how this decline is certainly due to the collapse of GDP in the second quarter (-13%) but also to the fact that "since the 1990s the Italy has had extremely weak growth ".
No "other country has experienced such a huge leap backward because growth in the past has been more robust".
And for Visco it is necessary to implement reforms to relaunch the Italian economy after the Covid emergency but these will be "insufficient" for an advanced country such as Italy, unless it will also focus on research and development and education.
"We cannot rely only on the competitiveness of costs and prices" but on the ability to innovate.
"Italy is among the countries with the lowest OECD ranking" for research and development spending and this "is accompanied by insufficient investment in education".
Furthermore, "the data show that Italians do not attend school long enough".
(HANDLE).