WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE ITALIAN BUSINESS MODEL?
Panorama Country Risk - June 2013
This panorama contains a study of the Italian economy, which analyses and interrogates both macro and microeconomic issues. Italy’s growth appears very vulnerable (steep contraction in 2012 with the country set to remain in recession in 2013, and the economy likely to shrink by -1.7% according to Coface), and our company payment experience is worse for Italy than for the rest of Europe. This fragility of Italian businesses results not only from the country’s weak macro-economic performances (due to the continuing fall in productivity and weak innovation), but also from other factors. The country is characterised by a business fabric marked by a high intensity of micro companies, which are financially very precarious. Late payments by the public sector, which are recurrent and more frequently than else where in Europe, also contribute to explain the company payment behaviour. Accordingly, the Italian business model, traditionally marked out by dynamic companies, exporters and strongly focused on manufacturing has entered a period of acute crisis.
We also present, in this panorama, the latest adjustments to our country assessment (which measure the risk of company payment defaults in a given country) and an update to the relevant country studies – including those of South Africa, Ireland, Japan and Tunisia – and of those currently under the spotlight, like Turkey.