by Yang Ying, Wang Yunjia
ROME, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hit by the global financial crisis, the Italian economy will have a very slow recovery in the coming years, an Italian economic expert told Xinhua.
Although the Italian economy has shown some positive signs and would return to growth in 2010, the country's GDP would not be able to come back to normal until 2014, said Gustavo Piga, an economics professor at the University of Tor Vergata of Rome.
The Italian national statistical institute (Istat) said that Italy's GDP has managed to increase by 0.6 percent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous quarter. Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti has predicted that Italy would conclude the year 2010 with a 1-percent growth of the GDP.
"Absolutely I agree to that. But we should remember that we have lost 6percent in these past years. So we won't go back to the previous level in a short time, we won't recuperate this 6 percent until 2014," said Piga, who is also managing editor of the the Politica Economia magazine.
Piga explained that although the Italian banking system has suffered less than those in Britain or the United States, Italy is now facing a crisis in real economy.
To make things worse, the global crisis is leading to a contraction of Italy's exports, upon which the Italian economy heavily relies.
Piga believed that too much waste in the use of resources and too much red tape are also obstacles to recovery.
"Italy should learn to spend better, especially that the public expenditure should be allocated to where it is really needed or really deserved."
Piga argued that Italy needs to have more investment in innovation and in the scientific field.
"Some economists say we need to curtail spending. I disagree with that. We don't have to cut the expenditure because in Italy there are many sectors which need funds. We need to use it much better," Piga said.
In the meantime, Piga said Italy needs economic reforms to be more competitive in the long term. However carrying out reforms in a time of recession would meet more difficulties, even lead to failure.
"So what we are looking at is a very slow recovery in the next four years," said Piga.
Talking about economic cooperation between Italy and China, Piga said: "It should be seen that our cooperation is not against the interests of each other at all."
He believed that Italian businessmen should learn more about the Chinese culture in order to penetrate into China.
"The two countries have huge potential of cooperation," said Piga. "We should really show the advantages of the Italian economy. After all, China has one fifth of the world's population."
