Italy's budget watchdog sees 2019 deficit/GDP at 2.6 percent

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's parliamentary budget watchdog (UPB) expects the 2019 deficit to come in at 2.6 percent of economic output rather than the 2.4 percent forecast by the government, UPB president Giuseppe Pisauro said on Monday.

Pisauro told a parliamentary commission that the disparity was because UPB had different growth forecasts to the government and because it expected a greater impact on state accounts from rising interest rate yields.