ROME (Reuters) - Italy suggested on Sunday it was unlikely to sell a stake in state utility firm Enel by the end of the year as planned, citing poor market conditions, but instead hinted it could step in to buy troubled steel maker Ilva.
The country has been backtracking on privatisation goals ever since former Prime Minister Mario Monti set a target in 2012 of selling assets worth 1 percent of gross domestic product or roughly 16 billion euro per year, which was not achieved.
Italy needs the money to pay down its huge public debt - over 132 percent of GDP - though analysts say sales of the scale envisaged would have little meaningful impact on the debt pile. The country is stuck in its third recession in six years, and volatile global stock markets have kept potential investors away.
Earlier this year the government said 5 percent of Enel would be put on the bloc by the end of 2014 but that sale, along with those of other earmarked state assets, has failed to make the planned progress.
On Sunday Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told Corriere della Sera daily that the government "realised it needed more time" to get maximum value out of companies like Enel.
"In 2014 we have sold a bit less than planned but I think we can make up for it next year," he said.
A plan to sell 40 percent of the state postal service by the end of this year has also never got off the ground.
In September this year Matteo Renzi's government set a new goal of 0.7 percent of GDP per year as a three year average from 2015. It said this year just 0.28 percent would be sold.
In a separate newspaper interview on Sunday, Renzi said if no private buyer could be found for stricken steelmaker Ilva, he was open to "public intervention" to save jobs and output at its plant in the southern city of Taranto.
Ilva, Europe's biggest steel plant by output capacity, was placed under special administration last year after being accused of failing to contain toxic emissions, threatening the jobs of its over 16,000 employees.
"We are considering whether to intervene at Ilva with a public body, to turn around the company for two or three years ... and then put it on the market," Renzi told la Repubblica. He said this showed he had "no ideological dogma" against state intervention.
(Reporting By Gavin Jones; Editing by Sophie Walker)