Executive Summary Italy's Economy, the Ninth-Largest in the World, Is Fully
Executive Summary Italy’s economy, the ninth-largest in the world, is fully diversified, but dominated by small and medium-sized firms (SMEs), which comprise 99.9 percent of Italian businesses. Italy is an original member of the 18-nation Eurozone. Germany, France, the United States, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are Italy's most important trading partners, with China continuing to gain ground. Tourism is an important source of external revenue, as are exports of engineering products, mechanical machinery, and textiles/fashion. Italy continues to lag behind many industrialized nations as a recipient of direct foreign investment, and Italy does not have a bilateral investment treaty with the United States (see section on Bilateral Investment Agreements for the full list of countries that have such treaties with Italy). Italy’s relatively affluent domestic market, proximity to emerging economies in North Africa and the Middle East, and assorted centers of excellence in scientific and information technology research remain attractive to many investors. The government in 2013 remained open to specific foreign sovereign wealth funds to invest in shares of Italian companies and banks and continued to make information available online to prospective investors. The Italian government’s efforts to implement new investment promotion policy that would paint Italy as a desirable direct investment destination were overshadowed in large part by Italy’s ongoing economic weakness, setbacks to reform initiatives, and lack of concrete action on structural reforms that could repair the lengthy and often inconsistent legal and regulatory systems, unpredictable tax structure and layered bureaucracy. However, Italy’s economy is moving into fragile recovery after its longest recession in recent memory and this could provide political momentum for improvements to Italy’s investment climate.
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