USA: Italian Business Relations
The economic relationship between USA and Italy has two aspects namely bilateral and multilateral. Before considering how the two governments interact, a review of bilateral trade and investment is in order. The main elements of bilateral trade are its substantial volume, a relatively large and growing Italian trade surplus, and the small size of the Italian market for US exporters in relation to its share of the GDP of the EU. According to US Department of Commerce statistics, bilateral trade amounted to almost $16 billion in the first half of 1998. However, US imports ($10.2 billion) were more than twice the level of exports ($4.6 billion). That resulted in a US bilateral deficit of $5.7 billion — a level more than 50 percent above the deficit registered in 1995 — placing Italy in eighth position among countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit.
Of course, the United States is a more important market for Italy than vice-versa. Italy ships eight percent of its exports to the United States, placing the United States as Italy’s third-largest market (1997 figures, ISTAT), whereas Italy is the United States’s 19th largest export destination, receiving a fraction over one percent of US exports. On the import side, the United States is Italy’s fifth largest supplier, accounting for five percent of the total, while Italy provides 2.3 percent of US imports, making it the 11th largest supplier to the United States. Viewed also within the context of the EU, Italy is a less important partner for the United States than its overall economic strength would suggest. Despite having the EU’s third largest economy, accounting for 16 percent of the EU’s GDP (OECD, Economic Indicators, April 1998), Italy ranked only seventh in the first half of 1998 as a destination for US..................
