ROME (Reuters) -Italy’s economy grew by 0.2% in the second quarter from the previous three months, driven by domestic demand, preliminary data showed on Tuesday, in line with forecasts.
On a year-on-year basis, second quarter gross domestic product in the euro zone’s third largest economy was up 0.9%, national statistics bureau ISTAT said, also in line with a Reuters survey.
Italy’s government forecast in April that the economy would expand 1% this year, broadly in line with last year’s 0.9% growth rate.
“From the demand side, there is a positive contribution by the domestic component (gross of change in inventories) and a negative one by the net export component”, ISTAT said.
It gave no numerical breakdown of components with its preliminary estimate, but said services had supported the growth whereas both industry and agriculture had made a negative contribution.
The statistics bureau signalled that the quarterly increase was the fourth consecutive one, with “acquired variation growth” at the end of the second quarter at 0.7%.
That means that if quarterly GDP growth were flat for the rest of 2024, full year growth would still come in at 0.7%.
Quarter-on-quarter growth in the January-March period was unrevised at 0.3%, while ISTAT slightly lowered the year-on-year rate to 0.6% from a previously reported 0.7%.
ISTAT will release final Q2 GDP data on September 2.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, editing by Keith Weir)
