Italy Moves Away from Austerity

A deeper-than-expected recession is hurting Italy’s public finances but it can still keep the budget deficit below 3 percent of output without more fiscal tightening, Economy Minister Fabrizio Saccomanni said on Thursday.

Saccomanni, a former Bank of Italy official, said in parliament that the economic slump was weighing on tax revenues and in particular sales tax, as consumer spending slumps.

However, when asked if corrective measures would be needed to meet this year’s deficit target of 2.9 percent of gross domestic product, just a notch below the EU ceiling, he told Reuters: “I don’t think so.”

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza