Italian GDP forecasts for 2017 and 2018 set to be marked up

Things may be looking up for one of the euro area's slowest growing economies, Italy, ahead of next year's elections, but not so for the public purse.

According to a sources-based report from Reuters, updated macroeconomic projections from the country's Treasury would see forecasts for gross domestic product in 2017 and 2018 marked up substantially.

Officials in Rome now expected GDP to expand by around 1.5% in 2018, up from a current estimate for growth of 1.0%, Reuters said.

Despite that, Italy was expected to rack-up a public spending deficit of -1.7% or -1.8% of GDP next year, versus a prior estimate of -1.2%.

In 2017, GDP growth was now seen clocking in at about 1.5%, versus a previous forecast of 1.1%, confirming an earlier 'leak' from government sources.

During the second quarter of 2017, Italian GDP expanded at one of the slowest rates of the entire euro area, indeed of the entire European Union, by 1.2% year-on-year.

Only France (1.0%) and Greece (0.4%) fared worse.

The new set of forecasts was expected to be published on or about 20 September.