Italian economy still mired in stagnancy: statistics institute

Consumption showed zero improvement and investments dropped in recession-battered Italy in the third quarter of this year, national statistics institute Istat said on Monday, revising down growth of the Italian economy.

Compared to the second quarter of 2014, final consumption expenditure in the July-September period remained stationary, Istat said. Gross fixed capital formation decreased by 1 percent and imports by 0.3 percent, while exports increased by 0.2 percent.

With respect to the third quarter of 2013, final consumption expenditure increased by 0.4 percent and exports by 1.3 percent. Gross fixed capital formation decreased by 3.1 percent and imports by 0.7 percent.

Istat said that in the third quarter of 2014 the seasonally and calendar adjusted, chained volume measure of gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 0.1 percent with respect to the second quarter of 2014 and by 0.5 percent in comparison with the third quarter of 2013.

The Rome-based institute revised down Italy's accumulated GDP growth for so far in 2014 to down 0.4 percent, compared to its previous estimate of down 0.3 percent.

"We are in front of the umpteenth confirmation of what we have claimed for long time, the urgency of courageous and resourceful action to restore household purchasing power," consumer groups Adusbef and Federconsumatori said in a statement commenting on the Istat data.

The groups noted that household consumption has fallen nearly 11 percent over the past three years. They estimated that such a drop has cost the Italian economy as much as 78 billion euros (97. 4 billion U.S. dollars) and called on the government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to especially work at boosting employment as the best way to encourage consumers.

A draft budget which was presented by the center-left government in October and provides a series of measures aimed at stimulating growth and investments to hail the economy is going through parliamentary iter for approval by the end of the year.

Italy has decided to delay the target date for achieving a structural balanced budget to 2017 from 2016, and has planned to reduce its structural deficit by 0.1 percent of GDP in 2015 instead of the 0.5 percent asked by the European Union (EU).