Italy’s economy has fallen back into recession, latest official figures show, after contracting for two quarters in a row.
GDP, the value of all the country’s goods and services, shrank 0.2% in the second quarter of the year.
The surprisingly weak number follows a 0.1% contraction in the first quarter.
Economists consider two quarters of shrinking GDP means a country is in recession.
At the end of last year the country appeared to be emerging from recession, growing fractionally in the last three months.
But since then the numbers have been getting worse.
Speaking before the release of the latest figures, Hetal Mehta, European economist with Legal & General Investment Management, told the BBC: “Italy has a huge pile of government debt and they need growth to bring that debt stock down, so having such weak growth figures is a major setback.”
But the Bank of Italy said last month that GDP had contracted by 9% since the global financial crisis began in 2007.
Separate figures showed industrial output increased by 0.9% from May to June, the biggest increase in five months.
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