In 2020, the Italian GDP fell by 8.8% (raw data) while in the fourth quarter of 2020 it fell by 2% compared to the previous quarter and by 6.6% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Istat based on provisional estimates.
The figure is slightly better than expectations which indicated a decrease of 9%.
For the period October-December, the consensus of the analysts indicated a decline between 2% and 2.2%.
In seasonally adjusted terms, Italian GDP fell by 8.9% in 2020.
The GDP acquired for 2021, the one that would be obtained if the variation of all 4 quarters of the year were zero, is positive, equal to + 2.3%.
The Italian economy, explains Istat commenting on the data, records, after the robust recovery in the third quarter of + 16%, a new contraction in the fourth "due to the economic effects of the new measures adopted to contain the health emergency . This result - continues the Institute of Statistics - determines an increase in the tendential decline in GDP: from -5.1% in the previous quarter to -6.6% ".
The fourth quarter had two fewer working days than the previous quarter and one more working day compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. The cyclical variation is the synthesis of a decrease in added value in all the main production sectors, namely agriculture, forestry and fisheries, industry and services.
On the demand side, there is a negative contribution from both the domestic component (gross of inventories) and the net foreign component.
In the fourth quarter of 2020 Eurozone GDP returns to decline: -0.7% in the euro area and -0.5% in the EU-27.
In Italy the decline is -2%, the second highest after Austria (-4.3%).
Third worst is France (-1.3%).
On the other hand, it rises in Lithuania (+ 1.2%) and Latvia (+ 1.1%).
The European decline, Eurostat reports in the flash estimate, follows the strong rebound in the third quarter (+ 12.4% in the euro area and + 11.5% in the EU-27).
"Based on the first estimates on annual growth for 2020, based on quarterly data, GDP in the euro area fell by 6.8% and in the EU-27 by 6.4%": this is what Eurostat underlines in the accompanying note the flash estimate of GDP for the fourth quarter of 2020.