The Atradius Barometer on Payment Behavior in Western Europe reveals that Italy has the highest percentage of companies reporting negative impacts on their business due to payment delays from clients. To address this issue, 21.6% of Italian companies have had to adopt specific countermeasures to improve cash flow and delay payments to their own suppliers, while 18.4% have had to request an extension of their bank account scope. Italy remains the country with the longest average time to collect invoices (DSO) in Western Europe at 74 days, although this is an improvement from last year due to shorter payment delays from suppliers and slightly lower customer payment delays. However, the percentage of overdue invoices remains stable at 43.9%. The report also provides economic data on Italy's GDP growth, export and import growth rates, and the top five export sectors.
