Italy's Renzi bullish on growth ahead of referendum

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on Tuesday he was optimistic Italy's economy would grow by 1 percent this year, just a few weeks after he cut the official forecast to 0.8 percent.

Renzi, who is campaigning furiously ahead of a Dec. 4 referendum on a constitutional reform that he has staked his political future on, said on a television talk-show he was "optimistic that we'll end the year at 1 percent".

At the end of September, the government lowered its 2016 growth target from 1.2 percent to 0.8 percent, bringing it into line with most independent forecasters after gross domestic product stagnated in the second quarter.

Earlier on Tuesday, Italy's independent budget watchdog, the Parliamentary Budget Office (UPB) said it expected 2016 growth of just 0.7 percent. It forecast a GDP rise of 0.2 percent in the third quarter and 0.1 percent in the fourth.

The UPB created a stir this month when it refused to sign off on Renzi's multi-year budget plan, saying the economic outlook it depicted was too rosy. Italy has a record of strongly over-estimating its official growth forecasts.

Renzi is appearing daily in television and radio interviews to try to win support for his plan to overhaul the constitution by curbing the role of the Senate and reducing the powers of regional governments.

With around six weeks to go before the referendum on the reform, the great majority of opinion polls over the last month put the "no" camp ahead.

Earlier this year, Renzi repeatedly vowed to resign and quit politics if he lost the ballot, but over the past two months he has declined to confirm the pledge, saying debate over his own future deflected attention from the merits of the reform.

At the same time, he has sharply raised the pitch of his rhetoric in criticising the EU's fiscal rules which many Italians blame for their chronically stagnant economy.

(Reporting by Massimiliano Di Giorgio, Writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Alison Williams)