Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte confirmed the budget deficits plan after meeting of ministers yesterday. The deficit targets are now 2.4% of GDP in 2019, 2.1% in 2020 and 1.8% in 2021. Conte predicted debt-to-GDP ratio to fall slightly from the current 131% to 130% in 2019, and then drop further to 126.5% by 2021.
Conte hailed the budget as “respected commitments, it is courageous and serious”. And he added “we will show courage above all in 2019, because we believe that our country needs a budget that calls for strong growth”.
Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said there would be additional investments of 0.2% in 2019, 0.3% in 2020, and 0.4% in 2021. And, he added “this describes the quality of the budget: we’re aiming to have public investments as principal instrument to work on growth”.
