Italy 'happy' to lower deficit target - Deputy PM to paper

FILE PHOTO: Italian Minister of Labor and Industry Luigi Di Maio speaks at the Italian Business Association Confcommercio meeting in Rome, Italy, June 7, 2018. REUTERS/Tony Gentile - Copyright Tony Gentile(Reuters)

By Reuters

Published on 14/12/2018 - 08:04•Updated 18/04/2024 - 17:42

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MILAN (Reuters) - The Italian government is "happy" to be able to lower its deficit target for next year, Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Friday in a newspaper interview.

The government wanted to avoid disciplinary action with Brussels over its 2019 budget, but without betraying pledges made to Italian voters, Di Maio told Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Asked about the economic growth target of 1.5 percent set for 2019, Di Maio said, "the only reason to come down from 1.5 percent could be linked to the slowdown in the last part of the year, caused mainly by exports."

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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