The Italian Economy Minister, Daniele Franco, said today, Saturday, that the net costs of imports… energy The Italian government will approach 100 billion euros ($99.5 billion) this year, eliminating the net surplus in trade with the rest of the world that the country has recorded in recent years.
Franco added that Italia Last year, it relied on imports for 75% of its energy consumption. The net cost of energy imports is 43 billion euros ($1.0049). “We are transferring wealth abroad,” Franco said at the annual Ambrositi Business Forum in Chernobyo.
The 100 billion euros, he added, “are up to three percentage points of GDP, which we pass on to energy-producing countries.”
He stated that the government has spent 33 billion euros since the beginning of the year to offset the impact of high energy prices on the economy, but this strategy is very expensive and cannot continue indefinitely.
“What matters is addressing the performance of the European energy market in order to bring gas and energy prices to potential levels,” he said.
At the end of last June, Italy announced a package of measures of regarding 3.3 billion euros ($3.50 billion) to help households and companies cope with a sharp increase in energy costs amid a shortage of supplies from Russia.
The package comes on top of the more than 30 billion euros earmarked since January to cushion the impact of a sharp rise in electricity costs andGas and gasoline, which are putting pressure on growth prospects in the eurozone’s third largest economy.
The plan focuses mainly on extending measures to reduce electricity and gas bills for companies and families to the third quarter of the year.
(Archyde.com, The New Arab)
