2024-04-16 07:38:03
BOLZANO. That not everything goes smoothly in the socio-economic mechanisms in this province is further confirmed also in the consumption spending of South Tyrolean families. In 2023 the change on the previous year was only 0.7 percentlower than the national average which was 1.2%.
And this data – made public now byAstat (Provincial Institute of Statistics) – they also say something else, among others. Also last year GDP growth, compared to 2022, was only 0.3 percent. Here too, lower than the national one, equal to a plus 0.9 percent. In short, it would seem that something has gone wrong in a land where high prices reign supreme. And fortunately, with regards to GDP, there were record levels of South Tyrolean exports, thanks above all to manufacturing companies, which mitigated these data.
Also in Alto Adige in 2023, one was recorded, especially starting from the summer gradual contraction of inflation, which however still remains quite high. “The continuation of the increase in prices, which has been eroding the purchasing power of families since the end of the Covid period, also reduces the new export record, on the threshold of seven billion euros”, explains Astat. However, foreign trade proves to be solid, also considering the positive change in exports to the main market of Germany, which in 2023 instead saw a contraction in this area, with the German locomotive having pulled the brakes.
«There needs to be awareness of the importance of industry in GDP growth», he underlines Stefan Pan, South Tyrolean entrepreneur and delegate of the president of Confindustria for Europe. A further decrease in inflation in South Tyrol is estimated for 2024, which however depends on the evolution of the international scenario. The increase in GDP (gross domestic product) estimated by Astat for 2024 in South Tyrol is equal to 0.5% compared to a plus 0.7 percent in Italy. In 2023 it is estimated that Alto Adige will record a growth in household consumption expenditure lower than the national average (+1.2%), equal to 0.7%.
The indicator would therefore still remain below the level recorded in 2019. Thus, according to data from the provincial statistics institute. «I believe that the South Tyrolean GDP data is affected by the low growth of Germany and Austria, traditional markets for South Tyrolean goods. Then the cost of living cannot help but weigh on family consumption with prices which, according to research, are between 25 and 30 percent higher than the Italian average. To say that in times in which the cost of living is very high and is not compensated by the same growth in wages, it is logical that if before I bought bread, butter and jam for breakfast, now maybe I only buy the first two. If I used to buy three new pairs of shoes, maybe now I’ll only get one pair, given the prices. So to speak and this is naturally the average South Tyrolean employee”, he underlines Donatella Califanogeneral secretary of the CISL/SGB.
Who then adds: «Wealth must be redistributed more on workers’ salaries». For his part, Stefan Pan returns to the importance of industry, underlining among other things that the sector already pays its employees 40% more than the South Tyrolean average. «The industry generates 24 percent of South Tyrol’s GDP, a rebirth of the sector is necessary in the face of the challenges of the coming years: from sustainability to digitalisation, from energy costs to defense costs. And only businesses produce wealth which then means financing the social system”, concludes Pan.
2024-04-16 07:38:03