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.
Failure on the part of both the Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs and these two energy companies to reach agreement on minimizing the very sharp supply disruptions in energy output would throw off track the economy’s current growth mode, resulting in close to zero growth or even contraction for the year as a whole.