Spanish economic growth on track in third quarter

Spain has enjoyed some of the strongest and most sustained economic growth of all the nations in Europe over the past 24 months.

It’s only really economists who break the year down into quarters. Sure, we all have a mental map of when summer ends and winter starts, but spring and autumn often do a passable impression of the seasons either side of them, which makes the notion of four seasons redundant for many…

This is even more so the case in Spain, when the weather shifts from “blazing hot” to “where did all this wind and rain come from?” and back to “blazing hot” in the blink of an eye. But where Spain does excel in breaking down the year into quarters is, well, the economy.

Spain’s cosy relationship with tourism means that the summer season is always its busiest and most profitable, while the Easter-driven exodus to the country’s coastline every year means that springtime in Spain really does give a taster of summer.

Autumn is pretty much a summer hangover, while the short winter period even sees a steady stream of sun-starved northern Europeans exclaiming “17 degrees and bright blue skies? I’ll have me some of that”, before snapping up winter sun deals on the Costa del Sol.

But what does all this mean for Spain’s economy? Well, it means that each quarter is playing its part in keeping fiscal growth ticking along. This week, the data for the third quarter was published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) and it revealed that for the period of July – September Spain’s GDP grew 0.8%, building upon 0.9% GDP growth in the second quarter.

Driving this growth is tourism, real estate and agriculture, and as all three of these industries have an extremely positive outlook, economists are confident that Spain will end 2017 having surpassed 3% GDP growth, placing it at the top table of EU countries’ financial strength.

Next year, Madrid is forecasting growth of 2.3%, which is slightly lower than previous projections and has been lowered – in part – due to the uncertainty surrounding Catalonia’s efforts to hold a binding independence referendum. Even so, Spain is likely to be among Europe’s strongest economies once again in 2018.