Spain’s National Statistics Institute said yesterday the number of purchase-sale transactions in the property market grew 17.3% in November to 33,806 from a year ago (and compared with a rise of 6.5% in October). That makes ten consecutive months of year-on-year rises. The data confirms the property market is recovering its role as a key economic driver.
Spain continues to hold its own among the most important destinations for foreign investment. In 2014, it was ranked twelfth in the world and third in Europe in terms of net inward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flow and ninth in terms of stock. In fact, there are an estimated 10,700 subsidiaries of foreign companies in Spain generating 28% of national turnover to €434.4 billion, as last data of 2013 given by the Association Multinacionales por Marca España point.
Analyst consensus is unanimous. Stock markets will continue to rise in 2017 and, so they say, Spain’s Ibex 35 will be the strongest performer. While other European markets could see rises of between 8%-10% this year, some analysts predict the Ibex could climb above the 11,000 level in 2017. If this is the case, the revaluation would be a spectacular 15%-16%.
I have read that since the arrival of Rajoy, the number of unemployed people has fallen by 1.3 million. Well done! But more than half of that corresponds to the drop in the Spain’s active population, who are not confident about finding work.
The country’s Supreme Court has ruled that town councils should charge Spain’s electricity and gas companies for using the public domain for their energy transport installations, at a rate of between 3,000 and 12,000 euros per linear metre a year. This is what the court has set down in five legal rulings, putting an end to a long dispute between the town councils and the companies which refused to pay these fees.
The number of jobless people registered with Spain’s unemployment offices stood at 3,7 million at end-December 2016, representing a fall of 390,534 people, or 9.54%, for the year as a whole. This is the fourth consecutive anual decline and the biggest since the historic series started in 1996, according to the Labour Ministry.
J.L. M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | The Spanish economy’s deleveraging process is still ongoing. But the data for Q3 shows different trends in financing capacity depending on the sector.
It looks like 2017 will present a lot of opportunities and challenges for the Spanish economy. It will grow at a good pace, creating jobs, with a minority government obliged to seek consensus on issues like education and pensions. Meeting our deficit commitments to Europe will remain a challenge after 2016.
Every national and international economic organisation and the most trustworthy research houses agree in predicting a deceleration in the Spanish economy in 2017, due mainly to the slowdown in private consumption.
Spain’s main political parties PP, PSOE and Cuidadanos, with the exception of Podemos, have agreed to reform the electricity tariff discount rate, as well prohibit electricity cuts for those consumers considered “very vulnerable.” Analysts at ACF believe it will be important to confirm the final conditions and the net impact for the electricity companies, but a priori they don’t expect this will be significant.