Spanish manufacturing ended 2016 on a high

Spain’s manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest pace for nearly a year in December 2016, according to a recent survey by Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).

Driven by new factory orders and surging output, Spain’s manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest pace for nearly a year in December 2016, according to a recent survey by Markit’s Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI). Indeed, rising to 55.3 from 54.5 in November, the index has consistently remained above the 50 line – the demarcation between growth and contraction – every month since November 2013…

At the same time, despite the Spanish automobile sector’s concerns that the termination of the government’s scrappage scheme – known as ‘PIVE’ – at the end of last autumn would damage the recovery of the new cars market, sales of new vehicles nonetheless rose by 11% in 2016 with the total for the year reaching 1.14 million units sold, a rise of 10.9% compared with figures for 2015, and the highest annual result since 2008.

The data also shows that the three models most popular with Spanish buyers last year were the Citroën C4 (34,615 sales), followed by the Seat León (33,653) and the Seat Ibiza (31,836).