Bankinter : Preliminary December CPI +6.7% YoY rises strongly from 5.5% previously and well above the 5.6% expected. The underlying rate stands at 2.1% YoY in December (preliminary) from 1.7% previously. According to the INE, the advanced figure for December would be the highest CPI rate since March 1992. Of note in this behaviour is the rise in the price of electricity, higher this month than in December 2020. Also…
Cintra, Ferrovial’s toll road subsidiary, has completed the acquisition of a 24.86% stake in Indian company IRB Infrastructure Developers for €369 million. The deal has been completed after a preferential share issue by IRB Infrastructure Developers, a leading infrastructure player in India, where it manages 24 projects spanning more than 2,500 kilometers of toll road. As a result, Ferrovial is now a significant minority shareholder with representation on the company’s…
Alicia García Herrero (Natixis) | This has not been an easy year despite the strong fiscal and monetary support to Covid-struck economies, especially in the Western world. Such support has allowed the North American and European economies to grow above potential amid repeated waves of Covid-19 and related mobility restrictions even if less severe than in 2020. On the other hand, the emerging world has grown below potential this year…
According to the newspaper “El Español”, the Spanish real estate market could close 2021 with 640,000 home sales, of which 75,000 units would come from the new construction market, and 565,000 units from the second-hand market, according to Colliers. Over 30% more than in 2020 and 9% more than in 2019. “2021 will be the year with the most sales in the last decade,” says Ferran Font, director of research…
The European Union has disbursed the first tranche of the €10 billion recovery fund to Spain on Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have confirmed.“The first Next Generation EU payment, €10 billion for Spain, is on its way! Congratulations to Spain,” the German announced on her Twitter profile. “I hope to have more good news for other EU countries very soon”, she…
Telefónica has presented the unions with a final offer for the Incentive Dismissal Plan (PSI) that provides for a maximum of 2,982 departures from the 4,532 workers entitled to join on the basis of age and seniority. This is nearly a hundred more than the proposal put forward at the previous meeting. The income offer remains the same as for the last proposals: 68% of the regulatory salary for those…
ICEX- Invest in Spain | Ilsa, a consortium managed by the Valencian firm, Air Nostrum and Italy’s Trenitalia, will be launching the train in the second half of 2022. This will be competition for Renfe and Ouigo in terms of high-speed travel, accounting for 30% of train journeys. In the medium term, it will run along the three corridors where rail liberalisation first began in Spain: Madrid-Barcelona, Madrid-Valencia and Madrid-Seville.
Samantha North | Freedom of movement in Europe was always something I took for granted. I saw Europe as part of our heritage, despite the grumblings of euroskeptics and sly articles in the British press about the perils of straight bananas and the metric system. Perhaps the EU is an “imagined community” too. But countries working together, no matter how flawed the process, is the only route we have to improving the world. It’s a project I’m determined to be part of.
Ben Krishna (The Conversation) | Herein lies the most probable future for this virus. Even if it behaves like a professional gamer and eventually maxes out all its stats, there is no reason to think that it won’t be controlled and cleared by the immune system. The mutations that improve its spreading ability do not greatly increase deaths. This maxed-out virus would then simply mutate randomly, changing enough over time to become unrecognisable to the immune system’s adapted defences, allowing waves of reinfection.
Julian Marx (Flossbach Von Storch) | Almost two years have passed since the outbreak of the pandemic and economic output in the Eurozone is still below pre-crisis levels, unlike in the US.The ECB envisages a more cautious monetary policy than the dollar bloc (Australia, Canada and the US): real economic output in the US in calendar year 2021 should already be a good two percent above that of 2019. In the eurozone, on the other hand, the statistics for 2021 will probably remain in some cases significantly below the pre-crisis level.