Country Overview
The continued quality of Italy's planning and procurement processes promotes competition among suppliers and, in turn, provides better value for money and outcomes for infrastructure investment. High levels of public debt, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and an economy struggling following a decade of negative growth may hinder Italy's ability to invest in new infrastructure. However, the Government is working on new measures to support public investment, by simplifying administrative procedures in areas that are crucial to the relaunch of public and private investment, such as procurement, and procedures for public works and ultra-broadband.
See Full Overview Data
GDP per capita
35,473 USD
Population
59.2 million persons
Infrastructure quality
84.1 (0-100 best)
Infrastructure investment
2.5% of GDP
Infrastructure gap
0.6% of GDP

Driver Overview

This section shows a country’s rank, ranking change and score for each of the eight drivers. It also categorises each country’s driver performance on a scale from “Emerging” (score from 0-20) to “Global Leader” (score from 80-100).

Driver
Rank
Score /100
Emerging Aspiring Contender Top performer Global Leader
- No ranking change Ranking increase Ranking decrease

Rank

Score /100

Best practice

20
1
68.2
Top performer
25
1
64.5
Top performer
28
5
77.3
Top performer
13
1
96.5
Global Leader
4
4
94.1
Global Leader
59
7
21.7
Aspiring
27
1
47.4
Top performer
21
-
48.8
Top performer

Metric Overview

Strengths

Transparency in public procurement

Public procurement in Italy has undergone significant change in recent years. A new public procurement code has been introduced with sector-specific regulations and e-procurement platforms have seen increased use.

Quality of land administration

The Italian Revenue Agency provides land and property information services free of charge to access property information including ownership rights. This data is maintained by local councils and is used to determine local property taxes.

Procurement of PPPs

Italy’s procurement processes are fair, transparent and encourage competition. Public procurement notices are posted online and companies receive a minimum of 35 days to submit bids. Shortlisting criteria are published, as are the results of the procurement process.

Transparency in public procurement

Public procurement in Italy has undergone significant change in recent years. A new public procurement code has been introduced with sector-specific regulations and e-procurement platforms have seen increased use.

Quality of land administration

The Italian Revenue Agency provides land and property information services free of charge to access property information including ownership rights. This data is maintained by local councils and is used to determine local property taxes.

Procurement of PPPs

Italy’s procurement processes are fair, transparent and encourage competition. Public procurement notices are posted online and companies receive a minimum of 35 days to submit bids. Shortlisting criteria are published, as are the results of the procurement process.

Top Performing Metrics

Top Performing Metrics

This is defined by the metrics with the highest unweighted score out of 100. 

High income country average

Procurement:
Procurement of PPPs

Opportunities to Grow

Gross government debt

At 133% of GDP, Italy's gross government debt is the third largest among High Income Countries. However, around two-thirds is domestic debt. Prior to Covid-19, as Italy reduced its budget deficit, the EU Commission considered Italy's debt to GDP ratio to be stable. Nevertheless, given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of servicing debt may be a significant burden on Italy's ability to invest in new infrastructure.

Long term GDP growth trend

Italy's real GDP per capita has fallen almost 19% since the Global Financial Crisis. Italy's poor economic performance has been driven by negative labour productivity growth, high levels of government debt and challenging economic conditions globally. This is likely to be exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.

Effect of taxation on incentives to invest

According to the World Economic Forum, Italy scores 16.2 on the extent to which taxes reduce the incentive to invest. This is below the High Income Countries’ average score of 47.3. A low score could discourage investment and affect the competitiveness of the market.

Gross government debt

At 133% of GDP, Italy's gross government debt is the third largest among High Income Countries. However, around two-thirds is domestic debt. Prior to Covid-19, as Italy reduced its budget deficit, the EU Commission considered Italy's debt to GDP ratio to be stable. Nevertheless, given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the cost of servicing debt may be a significant burden on Italy's ability to invest in new infrastructure.

Long term GDP growth trend

Italy's real GDP per capita has fallen almost 19% since the Global Financial Crisis. Italy's poor economic performance has been driven by negative labour productivity growth, high levels of government debt and challenging economic conditions globally. This is likely to be exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19.

Effect of taxation on incentives to invest

According to the World Economic Forum, Italy scores 16.2 on the extent to which taxes reduce the incentive to invest. This is below the High Income Countries’ average score of 47.3. A low score could discourage investment and affect the competitiveness of the market.

Metrics to Improve

Metrics to Improve

This is defined by the metrics with the lowest weighted score out of 100, such that these metrics would have the greatest impact on the overall score.

For metrics that have binary outcomes (yes=100/no=0), no comparative income group average is reported.

High income country average

Funding capacity:
Gross government debt

Funding capacity:
Long term GDP growth trend

Detailed Data

This section shows country data for each of the 41 metrics. The figures in brackets denote the change in score since InfraCompass 2017. 

Note that all data has been normalised on a scale of 1-100. For raw metric data, please download the complete InfraCompass 2020 dataset. 

Where relevant, some metric scores have been inverted, such that all metrics have positive relationships with good infrastructure outcomes. For example, since lower compliance costs make it easier to invest in infrastructure, the normalised value of ‘number of procedures to start a business’ has been reversed such that lower number of procedures are scored closer to 100, and higher numbers closer to 0. In other words, a score of 0 indicates a poor performance, rather than 0 number of procedures.

Governance Regulatory Permits Planning Procurement Activity Funding Financial
Driver
Rank
Score /100
Emerging Aspiring Contender Top performer Global Leader
- No ranking change Ranking increase Ranking decrease

Metric

Italy

High Income Countries Average

Source Link

28.2%

Recovery rate

The recovery rate is recorded as cents on the dollar recovered by secured creditors through reorganisation, liquidation or debt enforcement (foreclosure or receivership) proceedings.

65.6 (+1.7)
68.3

20.7%

Rule of law

World Governance Composite Indicator reflecting perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence. The rule of law reflects whether the law imposes limits of power on the state, private sector and individuals.

54.9 (-1.6)
74.3

18.1%

Post-completion reviews

Whether the country conducts post-completion reviews on infrastructure projects to ensure the forecast outcomes are being achieved.

Yes
-

15.1%

Shareholder governance

Measures the governance practices that protect shareholders through three dimensions: the extent of shareholder rights index (shareholders’ rights and role in major corporate decisions), the extent of ownership and control index (governance safeguards protecting shareholders from undue board control and entrenchment), and the extent of corporate transparency index (corporate transparency on ownership stakes).

53.3
48.1

12.8%

Political stability and absence of violence score

Measures perceptions of the likelihood of political instability and/or politically-motivated violence, including terrorism. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.

55.2 (-1.0)
61.9

5%

Infrastructure or PPP agency

Whether an infrastructure agency exists to coordinate an integrated approach to infrastructure delivery and policy.

Yes
-

Italy

High Income Countries Average

65.6 (+1.7)
68.3
54.9 (-1.6)
74.3
Yes
-
53.3
48.1
55.2 (-1.0)
61.9
Yes
-

Country Overview Data

The continued quality of Italy's planning and procurement processes promotes competition among suppliers and, in turn, provides better value for money and outcomes for infrastructure investment. High levels of public debt, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and an economy struggling following a decade of negative growth may hinder Italy's ability to invest in new infrastructure. However, the Government is working on new measures to support public investment, by simplifying administrative procedures in areas that are crucial to the relaunch of public and private investment, such as procurement, and procedures for public works and ultra-broadband.
GDP per capita

35,473 USD

Population

59.2 million persons

Infrastructure quality

84.1 (0-100 best)

Infrastructure investment

2.5% of GDP

Infrastructure gap

0.6% of GDP

GDP

1,989 USD billion

GDP growth rate

0.0%

GDP per capita growth rate

-4.0%

Gini coefficient

35.4 (0-100 worst)

Gross Government Debt

133.0% of GDP

Inflation rate

0.7%

Summary credit rating

62.0 (0-100 best)

Unemployment rate

9.2%

Urbanisation ratio

70.0% of total population

Road connectivity

85.9 (0-100 best)

Quality of road infrastructure

4.4 (1-7 best)

Efficiency of train services

4.1 (1-7 best)

Efficiency of air transport services

4.9 (1-7 best)

Efficiency of seaport services

4.7 (1-7 best)

Electricity access

100.0% of population

Electricity supply quality

5.7% of output lost

Exposure to unsafe drinking water

0.5% of population

Reliability of water supply

5.9 (1-7 best)

Digital Adoption Index

0.8 (0-1 best)

Mobile-broadband subscriptions

94.5 per 100 population

Fixed-broadband Internet subscriptions

28.0 per 100 population