A team of inspectors from the International Monetary Fund arrives in Italy on Thursday to collect data for the IMF's Article IV report on Italy.
The IMF team, which will remain in Italy until November 13, will stop first at the Bank of Italy in its review of the country's finances, the budget and growth prospects.
The talks the IMF will have in Italy will focus on a 17-page questionnaire which was sent ahead to their talking partners.
The 70 questions contained in the document centered on the general state and prospects for the economy, reforms, the job market, economic legislation and public finance.
Ample attention was also paid in the questionnaire to the situation at the ANAS highway agency and the state railways.
In their talks here, the IMF inspectors are expected to discuss the recent downgrading of Italy's credit status by the leading international ratings agencies.
Aside from the Bank of Italy, the IMF team will meet top brass at the Economy Ministry, the various watchdog authories, employer associations and union organizations in order to draw up its observations and recommendations.
At the end of their visit, the IMF team will hold their traditional press conference at the Economy Ministry.
In its September report, the IMF predicted that Italy's GDP this year will rise by 1.5% and in 2007 by 1.3%, while the budget deficit will be 4% of GDP this year and 4.1% next year.
The IMF also urged that Italy do more to cut spending and accelerate structural reforms.
Italy's Economic Development Minister Pierluigi Bersani said last week that Italy may see its GDP climb by almost 2% this year.
National statistics bureau Istat predicted after the second quarter that Italy could expect 1.4% growth for 2006. This is expected to improve after the third quarter results are known.
Both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Italy's independent research institute ISAE have recently both forecast 1.8% growth for Italy.
If their predictions are correct, it will be the Italian economy's best performance since 2001.
