The number of bankruptcies in Italy
in the first quarter of 2014 rose by 4.6% over the same period
last year, business information provider Cerved said Thursday.
However the total number of company closures fell by 3.5%
compared to the first quarter of 2013, the same source said.
In all 23,000 Italian companies closed between January and
March this year.
"This improvement is due to a drop in the number of
voluntary liquidations, which fell by 5%, and of non-bankruptcy
procedures, which fell by 1.4%," Cerved CEO Gianandrea De
Bernardis said.
Some 3,811 Italian companies went bankrupt in the first
quarter of 2014, according to the agency.
Bankruptcies rose throughout the country with the exception
of the northeast, which registered a drop of 1.8%.
In northwest Italy bankruptcies rose by 3.7%, in the south
and on the islands by 5.7% and in the centre by 10.3%.
The sectors worst affected by default were services (up
7.3%) and construction (6.3%).
The figures came as national statistics agency Istat said in
its preliminary estimates that Italy returned to negative growth
in the first quarter of 2014, with gross domestic product (GDP)
dropping 0.1% compared to the last three months of 2013.
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