Report card for Italy once again marked with "must do better"

The IMF have completed a mission to Italy and here are the main comments

  • Medium-term growth prospects are lacklustre
  • Progress on privatisations remain disappointing
  • Italy should restart NPL market and improve insolvency regime
  • Italy should lower their tax wedge and repair bank balance sheets
  • It's time for Italy to press ahead with reform agenda

Aside from the call for Italy to pull their socks up, the IMF did see growth increasing to 0.7% for 2015 from their prior forecast of 0.5%