Italy’s economy is starting to emerge from its fourth and worst postwar recession but will take years to get back to pre-crisis levels with some sectors never fully recovering, Confindustria, the main business association, warned on Wednesday.

But presenting some good news for the embattled centre-right government led by Silvio Berlusconi, Confindustria’s research centre made a slight upward revision to its forecast for gross domestic product growth next year to 0.8 per cent, after a fall of 4.8 per cent in 2009. International institutions are predicting a growth rate of about 0.2 per cent for Italy in 2010.