CdM | The General Council of Economists (CGE) has revised its GDP growth forecast for 2025 upwards to 3%, four tenths higher than its previous estimate, following the recent update by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the dynamism of the first two quarters of this year and the strong performance of domestic demand and the labour market, among other factors.
This improvement is in line with those made by the Bank of Spain, which has also revised its GDP forecast for 2025 upwards to 2.6%; the OECD, which has placed economic growth at 2.6%, tripling that of the eurozone as a whole; and the Government itself, which estimates growth of 2.7% this year.
In this regard, it should be noted that last September, the INE updated GDP for 2022, 2023 and 2024, as well as for the first and second quarters of 2025.
Thus, with regard to the 2024 update, annual GDP at current prices is estimated at €1,594,330 million, representing an increase of 3.5% over the previous year, 0.3 percentage points more than the previous estimate, with an upward influence on the current year. “This estimate shows a greater contribution from domestic demand (3.3%, compared to 2.8% previously), mainly due to the revision of the investment component, and a lower contribution from external demand (0.2%, compared to 0.4%), although both exports and imports have been revised upwards, the latter to a greater extent,” explains the CGE.
As for GDP in 2025, second-quarter growth has also been revised upwards to 0.8% quarter-on-quarter, 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter, with year-on-year growth standing at 3.1%. ‘The contribution of domestic demand (0.8 points compared to 0.4 in the previous quarter) is mainly based on household consumption, 0.8%, which, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, “reflects the strength of the labour market and the increase in purchasing power”,’ the economists add.
“Higher GDP growth in 2024 and better performance in the second half of 2025 confirm the strength of the Spanish economy, which maintains the momentum of previous quarters compared to other economies in our environment. Thus, Spain is the country with the highest growth in the second quarter, with a differential with the eurozone of 7 pp in the quarter-on-quarter rate and 17 in the year-on-year rate,” they emphasise.
However, the CGE highlights that, according to information published by DataInvex, foreign investment in Spain in the first half of the year reached €8.476 billion, compared to €21.407 billion in the same period in 2024, i.e. 60.4% less. ‘Possible causes include geopolitical uncertainties, trade conflicts involving tariffs and the slowdown in the European economy, our main market.’
Therefore, based on the dynamism of the first two quarters, the strong performance of domestic demand and the labour market, and the expansionary signals from leading indicators, among other factors, economists expect robust growth in the third quarter and somewhat more moderate growth in the last three months of the year.
‘The 0.6% and 0.8% increase in the Spanish economy in the first two quarters, together with the knock-on effect of the 0.3% upward revision of GDP growth in 2024, means that the growth forecast for the Spanish economy has been revised upwards to 3%, 0.4% more than in the previous estimate made on 1 July.’
