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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.
YolandaDiaz

Spanish economy 16th January 2023

Balearics: more people collecting unemployment benefits (59,461) than registered unemployed (35,851). Wonders of the labour reform

One autonomous community, the Balearic Islands, is already reflecting the mismatch between the numbers of registered unemployed and benefit recipients that the digital newspaper Theobjective.com has been reporting. According to data from the Public Employment Services (SEPE) for December 2022, analysed by the Studies Office of the Workers’ Trade Union (USO), in December in the Balearic Islands there were 59,461 benefit recipients while 35,851 people were registered as unemployed. According…

aranceles china

World economy 14th January 2023

China’s overall trade surplus in 2022 reaches all-time high of $878 Bn

Bankinter| China’s December Trade Balance records a surplus of +$78B vs +$76.9B estimated and +$69.84B previous. Exports decelerate -9.9% vs -11.1% estimated and -8.7% previous. Imports also, but less: -7.5% vs -10% estimated and -10.6% previous. Opinion: The trade surplus widens, which is good news, but it is due to lower imports (a symptom of weak domestic demand) and not to a rise in exports. In fact, exports are falling,…

Japanese general

World economy 13th January 2023

Japan: The beginning of the end of the BoJ’s Yield Curve Control

Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | Financial markets were caught off guard when the Bank of Japan (BoJ) adjusted its monetary policy on December 20th, 2022. The Bank decided to lift the ceiling on the 10-year JGB yield to 0.5% from 0.25% under the yield control (YCC). One interesting point to make is that the BoJ did not take the decision against the wall. In fact, the upward pressure on the…

Cellnex

Spanish economy 13th January 2023

Cellnex to focus on reducing debt below 6x Net Debt-to-EBITDA to achieve IG rating following CEO resignation

Bankinter | Cellnex CEO Tobias Martinez announced his resignation on Wednesday. He will step down on 3 June. In his resignation letter he explains: “The current economic and financial context, different from the one that has marked the successful development of the company’s industrial project over the last eight years, demands that we open a new chapter in the Cellnex story. A new stage based on maximising organic growth; consolidating…

Scholz

In Europe, Markets 12th January 2023

Germany calls on EU to create joint financing instruments to counter US green plan

Intermoney| Despite central bank messages, the news that moved the bond market on Tuesday was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s request to the European Union to create joint financing instruments to counter the US green plan. Bond yields fell as investors reduced bets on the scale of monetary tightening and positioned themselves for more fiscal burden-sharing in the bloc. A slower pace of tightening is good news for Italian bonds, as…

Production

Spanish economy 12th January 2023

Industrial production in Spain falls 0.7% month-on-month in November and 1.1% year-on-year

Banca March| The data for the industrial sector published in France and Spain have not brought very much news. It should be noted that in France the figures came as a surprise on the upward side, with industrial production rising by 2% month-on-month. Despite this rebound, if we compare with this with industrial production levels of 12 months ago, the fall in the sector’s activity in November was 0.1%. On…

Household savings rate at historical lows

Spanish economy 12th January 2023

Spanish household wealth falls 2% in just three months

Household financial assets – cash, shares, deposits and income securities – fell by 2% in the third quarter of 2022, to 2.62 trillion euros at the end of September. Specifically, the Financial Accounts of the Spanish Economy indicate that 105 billion were volatilised in the third quarter of 2022. In year-on-year terms, they fell by 0.5 %. The Bank of Spain explains that this decline reflects a negative revaluation of…

LNG regasification ship

Spanish economy 12th January 2023

Spanish LNG purchases from Russia up 45% in 2022

Spain has increased its imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Moscow by 45%, according to data from the latest Enagás statistical bulletin, published by El Periódico de la Energía. According to the newspaper La Vanguardia, it all started when Algeria closed the Maghreb-Europe gas pipeline (GME), one of the two that supply Spain, after the spanish government changed its position to favour Morocco’s claims over the Sahara, in the…

Aena

Spanish economy 12th January 2023

Aena figures improve: 17.9m passengers per month, only 2% below pre-pandemic levels.

Renta 4 | December traffic levels were only slightly below pre-pandemic levels and were also slightly better than in previous months. Passengers reached 17.9 million in the month, in line with forecasts, only 2% below 2019 levels, allowing us to reach the annual figure of 243.6 million passengers (11.5% below 2019’s figures, aligned with forecasts). Domestic passengers totalled 3.8% below 2019 and international passengers remain at 15% down on an…

capital energy auction

Spanish economy 11th January 2023

Spanish government proposes segmenting electricity market in Brussels to prevent gas from contaminating prices

The Ministry for Ecological Transition has informed the Council of Ministers of the proposed reform of the European wholesale electricity market that the government has sent to Brussels today. Following the economic measures that the Spanish government has proposed, and which Brussels “has accepted as its own”, according to the Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aagesen, during the presentation of the proposal to the media, the “conceptual” debate on…