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| ITALY-NEWS - SPECIAL REPORTS |
Hi dear Friend, here, twice per week, our special reports. If you like it, let us know and send it to a your friend : he will be happy for your gift Optimistic Italian Treasury MinisterItaly will stick to its inflation and growth forecasts for this year and next, Treasury Minister Vincenzo Visco said, even as inflation headed above 2.0 percent for the tenth month in a row."We've left our forecasts unchanged," Visco told reporters at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, referring to estimates unveiled in June's four-year budget plan. Asked whether the 2000 inflation aim was not too optimistic given the surge in oil prices, Visco said, "If you start to touch up one forecast, then you have to touch them all up." Italy's inflation rate has for the last nine months pierced the 2 percent threshold set for the euro region as a whole, and is set to puncture it again this month, with preliminary figures pointing to a 2.6 percent September rate. Still, the government has kept to its forecast of 2.3 percent inflation this year and 1.7 percent for 2001, even as economists say 2000 inflation could in fact average 2.5 percent. The government has also stuck to a 2.8 percent estimate for 2001 growth, even as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund are projecting 3.1 percent. Visco said if oil prices continued to hover at between $30 and $35 a barrel, "there will be an impact on growth", though he said there was no cause for "alarm". Asked to comment on Friday's concerted move by the world's leading central banks to prop up the euro, Visco said, "It is now up to the markets to go about their work", adding it was too soon to evaluate the impact. |
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