By Antonella Cinelli
ROME, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The Italian economy grew by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of last year from the previous three months and was up 0.8% year-on-year, data showed on Friday, a stronger reading than expected which bolsters the outlook for this year.
A Reuters survey of 28 economists had forecast a 0.2% rise quarter-on-quarter and an increase of just 0.5% year-on-year, significantly below the 0.8% outturn.
Several economists said Friday’s data reduced downside risks to their forecasts for 2026, all of which are for growth below 1%.
“Overall, today’s data is encouraging,” ING said in a note. “Given our current projected growth profile, our forecast for average growth of 0.8% in 2026 may prove too conservative.”
Over the whole of 2025, the euro zone’s third largest economy grew by 0.7% from the year earlier, when adjusted for the number of working days, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.
It will release on March 2 non-workday-adjusted growth data for last year, comparable with the government’s 0.5% target.
There were three fewer days worked last year than in 2024, so the March 2 data may show lower growth than the figure released on Friday.
ISTAT said so-called “acquired growth” going into 2026 stood at 0.3%, meaning that even if GDP is flat in each of the four quarters of this year, full-year growth will be up 0.3% from the year earlier.
Italy’s government has set a full-year growth target of 0.7% for this year.
The 0.3% quarter-on-quarter growth between October and December was the result of higher domestic demand which more than offset a negative contribution from trade flows, ISTAT said.
It gave no numerical breakdown of components with its preliminary estimate, but said industry, services and agriculture had all expanded.
The 21-nation currency bloc grew by 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in the October-December period, mirroring Italy’s result, and by 1.3% year-on-year, quicker than expected, Eurostat reported separately.
(Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, graphic by Stefano Bernabei, editing by Gavin Jones)
