Spain’s economy sees signs of encouraging improvement

Slow and steady: Spain's economy is slowly but surely picking up

Spain’s economy minister Luis de Guindos has reported to the markets that the country’s economy is showing encouraging signs of recovery following its late-2012 slump.

As doubts grew throughout Europe over the viability of southern European economies’ robustness in the face of rising debt and deficits, the Spanish economic chief confidently announced that the country’s economy had improved since the final three months of 2012, when economic output fell 0.8 per cent…

However, de Guindos was careful not to utter anything that could possibly be misquoted as a ‘recovery’.

“The first quarter of this year will be clearly less bad than the previous quarter,” he said. The economist also remarked that Rajoy’s government is fully expecting Spain’s GDP to decline by approximately 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2013 which, although a decline, still represents an improvement on last year.

The government predicts that the second and third quarters might even get close to zero growth, with the final quarter tentatively expected to show the first signs of positive growth for almost four years.

Spain’s double-dip recession has left the country mired in debt and despair since 2008, but there are encouraging signs elsewhere that things are starting to look up. The property market is beginning to come to life once again, and the impending summer season should bring a much-needed financial boon for many regions throughout Spain.