Luis Alcaide | The synthetic indicator of export activity prepared by the Ministry of Economy and Trade for the fourth quarter of 2024 shows a slight increase in the order book of around 0.6% for the first three months of 2025. Likewise, the twelve-month outlook maintains an even more modest but positive percentage. Flickering lights on the future of exports in the current year. The order book indicator has accurately…
Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…
Luis Alcaide | Spanish merchandise exports did not perform well last November, falling by 6.4% year-on-year in euros. This is compared to a decline of 4.1% in the eurozone, 2.7% in Italy, and 5.1% in France. Imports also recorded a decrease of 3.7% compared to November 2023. The export-import coverage rate stands at 86.4%, one of the lowest levels in the last decade for the month of November. The year-on-year…
Luis Alcaide | There were already warning signs, but the fear has been confirmed in the latest data on Spain’s export trade available for the month of May. In May, the value of exports recorded an increase of 2.3%, which fails to offset the decline of the first months of the year. Thus, in the last twelve months, the value of Spanish exports has fallen by 4.8% over the previous…
Luis Alcaide| The value of Spanish exports in August has repeated the pattern of the last ten years, albeit with less vigour. Exports fell by 14% year-on-year compared with July and by 10% year-on-year. The evolution of imports follows the same pattern, down both year-on-year and year-on-year. The trade deficit, €4,435.1 billion in August, is down substantially compared to €7,937.2 billion in August 2022. The lower trade deficit together with…
Luis Alcaide | The international press is talking about 100,000 Chinese investors willing to leave part of their capital in Ireland to continue their residence in the country. The attraction is simple: one million euros in investment funds or two million euros in equity investments, with a commitment to maintain them for three years. A stay of one day per year is sufficient. Chinese from Hong Kong and the Republic…
Luis Alcaide | Little has emerged from the face-to-face meeting between Xi Jinping and Pedro Sánchez during the G7 meeting in Bali. Only the Spanish Prime Minister’s request to his Chinese counterpart to exercise his best offices with Vladimir Putin to stop his invasion and destruction of Ukraine. Nothing has come to light about the bilateral relations between Spain and China, despite the fact that China is the leading international…
Luis Alcaide | At the end of July, Spain’s trade deficit amounted to 38.524 billion euros compared to 6.995 billion in 2021. The explanation was none other than the imbalance between purchases and sales with China and the countries of the Middle East, amounting to 38.503 billion euros. The People’s Republic of China has become the main supplier of goods to Spain. In the first seven months of the year,…
Luis Alcaide | Espionage and misunderstandings between Catalan supporters of Esquerra and Spanish supporters of the PSOE. The Spanish state, like any other, is doing its duty in the face of possible aggressions against its integrity and the liberty of its citizens. The director of the CNI, Paz Esteban, explains herself in the Congress of Deputies. The pro-independence parties and the most left-wing leftists do not quite accept the arguments…
Luis Alcaide | In the wake of his meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the main opposition candidate Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, recently elected president of the Partido Popular, complained that he had not been heard on his proposals on taxation: a reduction in personal income tax for taxpayers with lower incomes in order to compensate for the greater frequency of the effects of inflation. This is neither a pro-vo¬lu¬tionary nor…