Yesterday, the two branches of Parliament approved the budget variance and the Update Note to the Economic and Financial Document 2022, abbreviated as NADEF. These are the new economic and financial estimates formulated based on more available data and a macro picture certainly clearer than those made in the Economic and Financial Document presented in April. In NADEF, the executive also updates the country's programmatic objectives and considers any observations made by Europe (not so unlikely in the Italian case). The GDP growth forecast was revised upwards for 2022, from 3.3 percent to 3.7 percent, while that for 2023 was reduced from 0.6 percent to 0.3 percent. The forecasts for the next two years remained unchanged at 1.8% and 1.5% respectively. The new estimates of the trend deficit are consistent with those of NADEF in September relative to 2022 and 2023, with the expected net debt of 5.1% of GDP and 3.4% of GDP respectively. On the other hand, the deficit projections for 2024, from 3.5% to 3.6% of GDP, and for 2025, from 3.2% to 3.3%, are slightly revised upwards, mainly due to higher interest charges on public debt caused by the recent increase in market yields. It is also worrying that almost half of Italian children (45.2%) consume fruit every day, while as many as 4.6% say they take it to the table less than once a week and 3.6% never eat it.
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