After a long struggle, European Central Bank’s asset purchase program of € 60 billion ($67 billion) per month along with crucial reform pursued by Italian government seem to have restarted the Italian economy, Yahoo News reported. After Markit economics PMI report showed improvement, Italy’s national business group revised upwards its estimates for GDP. The group raised the forecast by 0.3% for this year and next, estimating growth to be 0.8% in 2015 and 1.4% in 2016. Though it might take years for Italy to reach its former glory, it certainly creates opportunity to go along on Italian stocks which are cheap compared to their historical standards. However significant contagion risk lies, if Greece choose to exit the eurozone, which might tumble the forecasts and derail the economy once again. Italy still needs to pursue crucial reforms and manage its debt which stands at more than 130% of GDP, second worst in the eurozone. Italy’s economy grew for the first time in seven quarters, but growth is still fragile at 0.3% and unemployment remains high at 12.4%.
