Italy approves €222b post-pandemic recovery plan

Italy on Thursday approved a recovery and resilience plan worth 222.1 billion euros which aimed at restarting the economy affected by the coronavirus pandemic, reported Xinhua.

The green light from Prime Minister Mario Draghi's cabinet came one day ahead of the Friday deadline set for European Union (EU) member states to send their recovery plans to the European Commission for review and final approval.

Italy's plan outlined six specified macro-areas of intervention, which were called "missions," each encompassing different key sectors, and the related investment plan.

The missions were: digitalization, innovation, competitiveness and culture -- which would receive investments worth 49.2 billion euro; green revolution and ecological transition; infrastructures for sustainable mobility; education and research; inclusion and cohesion; and healthcare.

The recovery plan will be financed up to 191.5 billion euros by the Next Generation EU program launched by the EU last year to support the member states most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

Further 30.6 billion euros will be covered by domestic resources, according to the government.

The plan was meant to address long-standing structural problems, including reforming the public administration and the justice system, said the government, adding that the multi-year recovery plan would help push the country's gross domestic product (GDP) up by 3.6 percentage points and the national employment by 3.2 percentage points by 2026.

The Italian economy, the euro-zone's third largest, shrank by 8.9 percent in 2020 over the previous year due to the impact of the pandemic, according to the preliminary estimate by the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT).

As for year 2021, the central Bank of Italy in its latest bulletin said a lasting and stable growth over 4 percent would be "plausible."