Since the fourth quarter of last year the world economy has undergone the deepest recession in decades. Italy, caught by the downturn in an especially delicate and complex phase of structural transformation, was the only major euro-area country to see GDP decline over 2008 as a whole. Economic activity continued to contract sharply in the first part of 2009.
Liguria was increasingly affected by the deepening international crisis in 2008 and the first few months of 2009, displaying a marked weakening in most sectors of economic activity. Some structural features of the region's economy, such as its high proportion of services and limited openness to foreign trade, delayed the emergence of the worst effects of the deterioration in external macroeconomic conditions.
In the industrial sector, the level of demand and production turned sharply downwards beginning in the autumn. Two thirds of the regional industrial firms that took part in the Bank of Italy's survey reported that they had been affected by the crisis; half of these firms judged the impact on their performance to be significant. Compared with the previous year, exports decelerated and profitability declined, while investment stagnated.
The construction sector was affected by the slowdown in the property market, where sales fell and prices remained stationary in real terms; building renovation work declined. Public works activity was flat, but some advances in project approval procedures and in competitive tenders for major investment programmes appear to indicate growth potential.
Trends varied across the different branches of the service sector, where the effects of the crisis were less strong than in industry. Retail sales of durable goods declined; large-scale distribution achieved a modest overall increase in sales that was limited to food products and consumer staples.
Cargo traffic through the region's ports diminished owing to the stagnation in world trade, which also caused a marked decrease in cargo prices. Container traffic diminished slightly, with the region's ports again underperforming the main ports of the Western Mediterranean. By contrast, passenger traffic expanded.
The growth in regional employment under way for several years, buoyed by regularization of the status of immigrants, came to a halt in 2008. The number of persons in work remained about the same, while that of job-seekers increased. The unemployment rate rose for the first time in several years, although it remained lower than the national average. Recourse to the ordinary wage supplementation fund increased, reaching a peak in the first quarter of 2009; in addition, regional measures were issued for wage supplementation to be paid under a waiver of ordinary requirements.
Bank lending slowed progressively, particularly as regards consumer households: new mortgage loans and consumer credit diminished, both adversely affected by the uncertain economic outlook and the weak growth in households' incomes. The growth in firms' recourse to credit slowed somewhat but was again rapid, especially for larger companies and for medium and long-term loans. The average interest rate on short-term loans to firms in Liguria remained higher than the national average, mainly owing to the composition of the region's firms by sector and size, characterized by the significant role played by family-owned businesses and small firms.
Lending by small banks expanded faster than lending by large banks. On the basis of analyses for the period 1997-2007, this was consistent with a long-term expansion in the role of small banks, particularly in financing small firms.
The allocation of savings was affected by households' increasing risk aversion in response to the performance of financial markets. Bank funding grew at a sustained pace, bond funding in particular. Among securities held for safekeeping and administration with the banking system, government securities and corporate bonds increased while units of collective investment undertakings and portfolios managed by banks on an individual basis recorded sizable net outflows of savings.
