Here are the lights and shadows of the foreign balance of payments
What emerges from the monthly bulletin published yesterday by the Bank of Italy on the foreign balance of payments. Giuseppe Liturri's analysis
The usual monthly bulletin published yesterday by the Bank of Italy relating to the foreign balance of payments presents lights and shadows.
Three are the most important facts: the improvement in the trade balance; The substantial increase in investments in foreign financial instruments by residents; the continuing stagnation of flows deriving from the travels of foreigners to Italy.
But let's go in order.
The first phenomenon sees the increase in the balance in the last 12 months compared to the previous 12 months from 59 billion to 76 billion. For the most part attributable to a renewed dynamism of exports and a substantial stagnation of approaches. In other words, exports have returned to the pre-crisis path, but imports have not followed the same dynamic. This discrepancy is probably the effect of the damage suffered by some international supply chains; damage that has not yet been repaired.
Conversely, exports have been able to count on sectors and types of goods less affected by this phenomenon. More In general, it should be emphasized that the weak trend in imports is a sign of an equally weak trend in national income. And this is never a good sign.
The issue of foreign investments by Italian savers is also worthy of note. In the month of May alone, a good 16 billion euro ended up in various types of financial instruments issued by non-residents, of which 9 in favor of foreign mutual funds. This is one of the most significant flows of the last 12 months and is the confirmation that the liquidity injected by the European Central Bank into the system is only fueling a financial bubble with little or no effect on the real economy.
A phenomenon that was certainly not born in the last 12 months but that dates exactly from the beginning of the quantitative easing initiated by Mario Draghi in March 2015. A huge round of turns that now touches 500 billion that has only increased the assets of banks and savers .
But it is on the front of receipts and payments for travel for reasons other than work or health, essentially travel for tourism, that the most painful notes are recorded. In May 2019 this expenditure was just over 3 billion, in May 2020 it stood at 220 million and in May 2021 we are still at 395 million, just over a tenth of the level before the pandemic.
A figure that offers a dramatic picture of the state in which foreign tourism in Italy is languishing despite all the sacrifices made so far and the discreet progress of the vaccination campaign.
An economic disaster that finds one of its main causes in a disastrous management of communication on the subject of infections and vaccines.
It remains only to understand if it is fault or willful misconduct, but the answer should not be long in coming.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/ecco-luci-e-ombre-della-bilancia-dei-pagamenti-con-lestero/ on Wed, 21 Jul 2021 13:45:05 +0000.