Although the difficulties that the Spanish small and medium sized companies experience to access finance showed signs of very soft relief, the figures were bad. The latest survey on SMEs in the euro zone offered a stark picture of small companies in Spain suffering the worse end of the credit crunch, as a consequence of a weak domestic market. In contrast, Spain’s corporations are able to weather the crisis thanks…
LONDON | Already in the mood to dismiss 2012 as a lost year for the UK economy? Analysts in the City of London waived as a non-event the preliminary GDP estimate of this year’s first quarter, released Wednesday by the office of national statistics, which showed that the British economy had contracted by -0.2%. The negative figure added up to a -0.3% fall in the economy in the final three months…
By Carlos Díaz Guell, in Madrid | The crisis has led to a rapid accumulation of public debt as a result of the deterioration in economic growth, the functioning of automatic stabilisers, fiscal incentives and public capital support for the banking sector. In the euro zone, the European Central Bank estimates that the ratio of public debt as a percentage of GDP has risen 22 points since 2007 so it reached…
Spain feels overwhelmed, to say the least, about the fact that it is these days referred to in countless headlines, euro zone leaders’ comments and foreign market participant analyses. The view from Madrid is that those portraits do not always mix the most accurate data with the intention of extracting a sentenced-to-bailout picture, in most cases. Of course, this is a biased impression, although the Spanish government and the financial industry…
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…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | Today is the day: petitioners will submit their requests in the second Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO) by the European Central Bank. On Wednesday the auction will be carried out, and the money will be distributed. Most experts estimate an amount slightly lower than the one expected by Mario Draghi (over €500 billion), and many see the LTRO with a positive feeling. However, the fact…
NEW YORK | The US are anxious over Greece. Wall Street fell on Wednesday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered its biggest one-day decline this year. Treasury 10-year note yields traded below 2 percent as European leaders work on an eventual €130 billion financial bailout for Athens at their next meeting on February 20. Investors did not hide their worries: “As much as we’d like to ignore Greece and…
According to ACF, the total amount of debt purchased by the ECB has doubled since the beginning of August. “The ECB increased purchases of sovereign debt during the last week up to €13.960bn. This is comparing to the previous week’s €13.300bn. The total amount of debt purchased by the ECB has almost doubled in the last five weeks. Since the purchasing program began in May 2010 up until last August…
When all you can quote from those who apparently warm up to the prospect of euro zone’s bonds is this… “It’s imperfect and it would be difficult,” says Simon Tilford of the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. “But it’s much less destructive, economically and politically,” than watching the euro collapse, he says. Although, that wouldn’t be accurate. There is this letter from the co-director at Coimbra Centre…