Milan: Italy´s central bank revised down its forecast for the country´s growth in 2022 on Friday due to the Omicron variant, which has sparked a recent surge of coronavirus cases.
The country´s gross domestic product (GDP) is set to grow by 3.8 percent this year, it said, lowering a projection of 4.0 percent made just one month ago.
Growth slowed "sharply" in the last quarter of 2021, due to "the resurgence of the pandemic", the bank said in its quarterly forecasting bulletin.
Italy reported nearly 180,000 new coronavirus cases on Friday and 373 deaths.
The bank said the latest wave had hurt consumer confidence.
The country is expected to see its job figures improve just slightly this year and next, with unemployment falling from 9.4 percent last year to 9.0 percent in 2022 and 8.9 percent in 2023. Those figures remain well above the eurozone rate of 7.2 percent in November.
This image taken on August 19, 2024, shows a user opening a digital application JazzCash on his mobile phone in...
Tesla Model X electric cars recharge their batteries in Berlin, Germany, November 13, 2019. — ReutersKARACHI:...
A representational image of the PAKSAT MM1. — SUPARCO website/FilePARIS: Elon Musk’s SpaceX subsidiary Starlink is...
Coal miners prepare to work in coal mine Abid Lolic in Nova Bila, Bosnia and Herzegovina May 12,...
Customers walk past an Apple logo inside of an Apple store at Grand Central Station in New York, US, August 1, 2018....
The headquarters of the Swiss National Bank is seen in Bern, Switzerland, January 29, 2025. —ReutersZURICH:...
