ECB’s Panetta: Southern Italian Economy Needs Stimulus

19 September 2024

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta on Thursday said that the southern Italian economy needed a boost to overcome the weakness of the global business cycle.  

Speaking at an event in the Italian city of Catania, Panetta, who heads the Banca d’Italia, said, according to a text provided, ‘It is essential to implement the projects quickly to stimulate the southern economy in a weak phase of the international cycle. But not at the cost of jeopardising its effectiveness’.

The southern Italian economy had come out of the recession caused by the sovereign debt crisis with more solid companies, he said.

‘The task of economic policy is now to consolidate and extend these positive signs’, he said. ‘Not with welfare policies, but with investments and reforms capable of raise the productive capacity of the southern economy.’