BIS Review 15/1997  -3-  The depreciation of the lira resulted in Italian firms incurring heavy losses. In the last few months of 1992 they began to reduce their foreign currency liabilities and build up their foreign currency assets and continued to do so on a major scale in the following years.
The private sector’s gross external liabilities, about three quarters of which consisted of borrowings by non-financial enterprises, remained virtually unchanged at around 450 trillion lire; their composition changed, however, as the foreign currency share fell sharply.