Bank of Italy trims Italy 2027 growth outlook, forecasts inflation jump

ROME, June 12 (Reuters) - The Italian economy will grow by 0.6% this year and 0.4% in 2027, the country's central bank said on Friday, confirming its previous estimate for 2026 but trimming next year's outlook from a 0.5% projection made in early April.

"Economic activity is set to be affected by weaker domestic

demand, held back by the surge in energy prices and even higher geopolitical uncertainty," the Bank of Italy said, forecasting a jump in inflation this year compared with its previous estimate.

The projections were prepared as part of a coordinated exercise prepared by euro zone central banks to feed into the European Central Bank's forecasts for the euro zone published this week.

Gross domestic product in the euro zone's third-largest economy grew by 0.3% in the first quarter from the previous three months, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported last month, revising up a previous printout.

The Bank of Italy said quarterly GDP would probably remain stagnant over the rest of this year, "before gradually returning to growth in early 2027."

The slight downward revision of its 2027 forecast was "mainly on account of the effects of higher commodity prices on consumption."

The Italian government in April forecast that GDP would grow by 0.6% both this year and next.

The Bank of Italy projected a 0.7% GDP growth rate for 2028, which would be a sixth consecutive year of sub-1% growth for Italy's chronically sluggish economy.

Italy's average EU-harmonised consumer price inflation rate (HICP) should come in this year at 3.1%, the report said, sharply up from the 2.6% it had forecast in April.

Inflation next year will slow to 2.0%, the central bank estimated, up from a previous 1.8% projection.

(Reporting by Gavin Jones and Mirko Miorelli, writing by Gavin Jones, editing by Gianluca Semeraro)