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03 April 2020 "The suspension of the activity involves 48% of the non-exporting companies and 65% of the exporting ones. In terms of turnover, the loss in one month of inactivity is 100 billion, in value added of 27 billion". The president of Istat, Gian Carlo Blangiardo, explains it in an interview with Mattino di Napoli in which he talks about the "large sample analysis operation of the Italian population" that is about to leave, with a clear aim: to minimize the risk of open and then have to go back. "

There is a "broader and more punctual" test compared to the ten thousand swabs with statistical sampling proposed by the president of the Italian Statistical Society Monica Pratesi. "The government's objective is not to know how many people are infected in Italy, we would be faced with a sort of statistical curiosity; but to get to detail by profession, or at least by work environment, and by territory of the percentage of infected people ".

The point, explains Blangiardo, "is to have a tool to manage the recovery, the reopening of Italy. So, like Istat, we will do a team investigation with others to estimate the spread of the contagion by job categories, age, gender and territories in order to identify situations of higher or lower risk and then define the spaces of freedom ".

Regarding the economic impact of the crisis, "all the industrial sectors and suspended services include 2.2 million enterprises (almost one in two), with an employment of 7.4 million employees (44.3% ) of which 4.9 million employees (42.1%), a turnover of 1,380 billion (42.8%), an added value of 321 billion (41%) and an export value of 280 billion (65, 8%) ", says Blangiardo.

"In terms of company size, 48.7% of micro-enterprises (those with fewer than 10 employees), 50.4% among small enterprises, 40.7% among medium-sized enterprises companies and 34.3% of large companies. And this is only the direct effect; considering also the indirect effects generated by the negative impact that the blocking of the activities of the 'closed' sectors generates on the 'open' sectors, the negative impact becomes wider. On these aspects - he concludes - Istat is working and on April 7 we will present the impact estimates ".

Income and purchasing power are down at the end of the year
disposable income of consumer households decreased by 0.2% compared to the previous quarter and by 0.4% in real terms, ie purchasing power. Istat points out this, underlining that disposable income in nominal terms marks a drop "after the growth observed in the first nine months of the year". As for spending power, the reduction "was more pronounced - it is explained - due to the positive dynamics of inflation". Households' propensity to save in the last three quarters of the year was 8.2%, down 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter. A "slight" decrease, explains Istat, which reflects the decrease in disposable income, against a stationary expenditure on final consumption. On the whole of 2019, however, the rumors keep the plus sign: compared to 2018, income shows a rise of 1.1%, purchasing power of 0.6% and spending of 0.9%. Turning the look on the business front, the profit share of non-financial companies in the last quarter of 2019 was equal to 41.8%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.

GDP deficit confirmed at 1.6%
In 2019 the ratio between deficit and GDP in Italy was 1.6%, down from 2.2% in 2018. Istat notes this, confirming the estimates released at the beginning of March. In detail, in the fourth quarter of 2019 the net credit (surplus) of general government on gross domestic product was 2.4% (+ 1.1% in the same quarter of 2018). The Institute of Statistics speaks of "a decided improvement" resulting from the increase in the primary surplus and the simultaneous reduction in interest expenditure.

Tax burden confirmed at 42.4% in 2019
The tax burden in 2019 was equal to 42.4% of GDP, an increase of 0.5 percentage points compared to 41.9 in 2018. Thus Istat confirmed the estimates released on March 2. Looking at the fourth quarter of 2019, the figure is up 1.1 points, passing to 51.2% of the Gross Domestic Product from 50.1% in the corresponding quarter of 2018.