ROME, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- The number of companies with a public participation in the capital declined in Italy in 2015, although the related employment level showed signs of improvement, the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) said on Monday.
"In 2015, units owned by the general government were 9,655, with a weight of 882,012 in terms of persons employed," ISTAT wrote in its report.
In the previous year, enterprises with a public participation had been 9,867, counting a little more than 846,000 workers.
Such figures marked an annual 2.1 percent decline in terms of companies, and a 4.3 percent increase in terms of employment, respectively.
The public participation focused especially on the energy, infrastructure, and innovative services sectors, ISTAT also said.
The general government controlled some 61.9 percent of the analyzed companies with a stake between 50 percent and 100 percent. Another 13.7 percent of those firms saw a public participation of between 20 percent and 50 percent, while the remaining 24.4 percent were owned for a share below 20 percent.
Compared to 2014, "the number of active enterprises participated by at least one regional or local public administration reduced by 12.7 percent," the agency added. The related employment dropped by 12 percent.
Looking at public corporations only -- that are companies with a government share exceeding 50 percent -- active enterprises were 4,249 for a total 621,926 people employed in 2015.
Some 23.5 percent of all public corporations reported a loss in 2015 -- against 27.4 percent in the previous year -- and 76.5 percent a profit.
Net of financial and banking sector, public corporations generated about 54 billion euros (63.4 billion U.S. dollars) in value added in 2015, representing about 10 percent of the value added produced by the whole industry and services, according to ISTAT.
