Awaiting the government’s official figures, which will be released next 30 April, the forecast published this week by the Bank of Spain should be taken as a telling sign of the success that austerity budgets throughout euro peripheral State members are enjoying. The Spanish central bank said that it expects the country’s economic activity to fall by 0.4pc during the first quarter of 2012, a one-tenth down from 2011’s last…
MADRID | Although nine candidates attempted on Sunday to pass through to the second round of the French presidential elections, only two mattered in the dispute for the trophy: Nicolas Sarkozy, current president of the republic, and the socialist Francois Hollande. Two days after the first round of elections, the polls are very clear and give a significant advantage to Hollande, with an intention to vote of 54% against 45% for Sarkozy….
LONDON | Consumers’ discretionary spending in the UK continued to deteriorate in March, and after inflation fell 1.1% from a year earlier, reaching its lowest level since February 2011. This equates to £113 less a year to spend on non-essential items. In its latest Spending Power Report released Monday, Lloyds TSB said hopes for a pick-up in economic activity in 2012 will go unanswered as consumers feel biggest squeeze in…
LONDON | In its global macro outlook report, investment company Schroders said on Friday that its eyes were on France amidst ongoing euro zone concerns and despite the uncertainty surrounding Spain. The upcoming elections could thwart France’s plans to implement State budget cuts, the Schroders paper highlighted, while the European Central Bank refinancing lines would have ring-fenced the Spanish banking sector from liquidity scarcity, unlike Italy’s. “France is the euro zone member currently…
She is the most experienced member of the European Commission and it shows. In her third term at the European institution, Viviane Reding does not shy away from discussing almost any subject, not even the poor economic situation of Spain, which she addressed in detail during an exclusive interview with Cinco Días. Reding is travelling on Thursday to Madrid, to meet with several members The official thesis in Brussels finds…
The EU27 external current account recorded a surplus of €13.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a deficit of €14.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. This is the first current account surplus recorded for the EU27 since the third quarter of 2002, Eurostat said in its Wednesday’s data release. In the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with the fourth quarter of 2010, there was a fall in…
LONDON | The UK’s Coalition government launched Tuesday a new joint enterprise capital fund that will invest at least £40 million in high-growth potential small and medium sized companies in the country. The fund is called Notion Capital and is the eleventh and largest finance support programme for SMEs in the European Union. According to the official press release, a total of £62.9m has already been committed to it from the…
LONDON | Ambitious property buyers hoping to pick up a European bargain despite economic turbulence pose a challenge to forecasts of a never-bottoming peripheral real estate market. The ongoing sovereign debt crisis is doing little to deter home buyers as Spain and France remain the firm favorites for those seeking to buy a place in the sun, currency specialists HiFX said on Tuesday. Its Property Hotspots Report crowned France and Spain as the top…
The first estimate for the euro zone trade in goods balance with the rest of the world in February 2012 gave a €2.8 billion surplus, compared with a deficit of -€2.8 billion in February 2011, the statistical office Eurostat said on Monday. The January 2012 balance was -€7.9 billion, compared with -€16.1 billion in January 2011. In February 2012 compared with January 2012, seasonally adjusted exports rose by 2.4% and imports by…
In February 2012 compared with January 2012, seasonally adjusted industrial production grew by 0.5% in the euro area and by 0.2% in the European Union. In January production remained stable in both zones, said Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Year on year, though, industrial production dropped by 1.8% in both the euro area and the EU27. In February 2012 compared with January 2012, production of energy grew by 7.7% in the…