* Reforms needed for better growth, lower debt
* Investment and growth prospects poor
By Tiziana Barghini and Stephen Brown
MILAN/ROME, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Condemned to prudence by its deficit and the conservative instincts of its banks and savers, Italy has survived the crisis well in the markets' view and even benefited relatively as peers spend their way out of trouble. But apparently encouraging signs like an uptick in growth after five quarters' of recession and the low risk premium investors demand for buying government debt cannot disguise that Italy still does not offer healthy prospects for growth.
"It's not foreign financial investors who don't want to stay
in this country but our kids, who will have to build their lives
abroad," said Rony Hamaui, who heads Medio-Factoring, a unit of
Italy's biggest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo
Despite its enviable culture and weather, Italy's high tax and labour costs, poor infrastructure, bureaucracy and judiciary, declining education and ageing population make it hard to retain qualified people.
A U.N. world investment report showed the flow of inward foreign direct investment in Italy, as a proportion of gross fixed capital formation, was 3.5 percent in 2008, down from 9 percent in 2007 and versus 13 percent for the European Union.
Economists say the way to improve a "mediocre" performance by the euro zone's third largest economy is urgent reform of the structural hindrances to doing business here. But they question whether the Italian political system is geared up for this.
Clamour for reform has gone on for years from the likes of the European Central Bank, but the stakes are now higher after the destruction of thousands of companies and jobs by Italy's worst recession since World War Two.
One third of small and medium businesses are now at risk, says industry lobby Confindustria, while the main service sector association Confesercenti estimates that 100,000 of its member companies have shut down this year, on top of 144,000 in 2008.
Firms who before the euro could count on lira devaluations to boost exports now use temporary lay-offs to cope with lower demand, but many will now have to restructure permanently.
"Data for 2008 and first estimates for 2009 show Italian firms held onto market share only by reducing their margins," said Gregorio De Felice, chief economist at Intesa Sanpaolo. "We can't imagine that will last a long time."
RESISTING CHANGE
Berlusconi swept into politics 15 years ago promising to help Italian business with lower taxes, riding high on a wave of disgust with "traditional" politics after corruption scandals.
He is now in his third term as prime minister, with many corruption scandals to his name but no convictions. The tax burden has not fallen, standing at 42.8 percent of GDP last year, which was nearly the highest level in a decade.
"But at least he hasn't put taxes up, despite the various financial and natural disasters," said academic and journalist Gregory Alegi, adding that Berlusconi has also had "a touch of bad luck. His electoral victory in 2001 came a few months before 9/11 and his 2008 win just before the financial meltdown."
Some Berlusconi supporters appreciate he makes less of a fuss about tax evasion than the centre-left government that collapsed in 2008. Berlusconi this year launched a tax amnesty for funds held abroad which is his third in nine years, on top of more than 20 amnesties for domestic tax evaders.
Italy's reluctance to change is nothing new, summed up by Lampedusa in "The Leopard" in 1958 with the much-quoted phrase "Everything must change for everything to remain unchanged".
But resisting reform just seems stubborn when the economy could, according to Confindustria chief economist Luca Paolazzi, grow 30 percent if Italy reformed "the competitive environment where companies operate".
The OECD expects Italy's economy to shrink 4.8 percent this year, no worse than Germany or Britain. But as forecasts look further ahead the gap widens with Italy seen growing 1.5 percent in 2011, Britain 2.2 percent and Germany 1.9. Italy's government forecasts growth will then plateau at 2 percent through 2013.
"LACK OF DYNAMISM"
Boosting growth would reduce the public deficit, lower debt financing costs and liberate resources to stimulate more growth, breaking what a Moody's report this month called the "rather mediocre equilibrium" limiting Italy's debt outlook to stable.
It has Italy on an Aa2 rating, Italy being the first G7 economy to lose its AAA status in the 1990s, followed by Japan.
Moody's complained of a "relative lack of economic dynamism" while Morgan Stanley wrote in a research paper that "without structural reforms aimed at raising potential growth, it will be difficult to bring down the public debt to an acceptable level".
Until that happens, even what looks like good news for the Italian economy, such as the uptick in GDP in the third quarter, could be just isolated events or bad news in disguise.
Paolazzi said the GDP data last week would be the high point of Italy's recovery with painful adjustments to lower demand yet to come, while the slow recovery would once again highlight how uncompetitive Italy has become versus its euro zone peers.
And while a higher-than-peers surge in the OECD's composite leading indicator for Italy in September was hailed by the media and politicians in Italy as proof that recovery was imminent, it looked less encouraging under closer scrutiny.
The index measures the gap between current activity and full-employment potential, so it picks up if current activity is rising, but also if long-term potential goes down.
Economist Francesco Giavazzi said the index rise for Italy was "partly attributed to a decrease in the estimated long-term potential level" and was thus "bad news rather than good news".
Nor does the spread between Italian 10-year BTP bonds and German Bunds, now down to 70-80 points from a mid-crisis peak of 174 in January, reflect well on Italy so much as the appetite for slightly riskier assets than benchmark bonds.
"The spread isn't such a good indicator of the credibility of the Italian government anymore," said economist Carlo Favero.
(Writing and reporting by Stephen Brown and Tiziana Barghini; editing by Janet McBride)