Italian Embassy in Russia Denies Claims About Economic Crisis in Italy

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Niccolo Fontana, the counselor for economic affairs at the Italian Embassy in Russia, said on Thursday that it would be wrong to claim that Italy was going through a severe crisis, as the country's economic indices were not low, while the new government was trying to improve the situation,

"I believe that it would be quite insolent and erroneous to say that Italy is currently going through a deep crisis. The data related to our current economic situation does not seem to me to be very negative so that to indicate a deep crisis," Fontana said at a press conference dubbed "Economy of Trust and Business Diplomacy: from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean."

Fontana added that Italy had reached its record high export indices.

"If we study the Italian export to Russia, we will see that growth has also been registered over the past two years," Fontana said.

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He expressed his hope for the trend to continue.

"We have a new government that has designed a new budget plan within the past few weeks. Let's hope that the parameters will remain positive. I would not compare [the situation in] Italy with the tragic economic situation that our Greek friends are facing," Fontana concluded.

In late September, the Italian government, elected in March, agreed to set the gross domestic product deficit at 2.4 percent for 2019. This move caused concern among the eurozone finance ministers claiming that such a budget plan would result in an economic slowdown and public debt increase, while Italy already ranks second among the EU states in terms of public debts.

Italy is set to present its full draft budget for 2019 to the European Commission by October 15.