ECB’s Visco: Markets Need Long-Term View of Italy’s Growth

8 October 2023

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Ignazio Visco on Sunday said that market concerns about Italy required a response.

In an interview with the FT, Visco, who heads the Banca d’Italia until the end of this month, said that '[o]bviously you need to understand why markets may be worried.'

'I don’t think it is speculation against the country. I think it is basically a concern about . . . the long-term potential growth rate of the economy', he said.

‘This is why you have to respond to the markets with two things: First, a view of the longer-term plan for growth and second, the action on the short and medium term as far as the fiscal imbalances are concerned’, he said.

‘The increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio has been mostly because of the dismal performance of GDP’, he said. ‘Even the service sector is slowing down’.

This scenario led him to believe that a Eurozone-wide recession might materialise in the second half of 2023, he told the FT.