MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Unlike Spain, where the external sector is supporting the economy, Italian exports fell by 1.9% in 1Q13, its worst register from 1Q09. The country’s GDP dropped by 0.6%, and April’s industrial production by 0.3%.
WASHINGTON | By Pablo Pardo. In July the American GDP will go up, although the economy won’t even feel it. Nor the so-called sequester or the Fed massive debt purchases have anything to do with it. Oil prices and the dollar are also out of the equation. The key: R&D will be considered as an investment.
MADRID | The Spanish government faces an uncomfortable dichotomy, says Carlos Díaz Güell: it either prolongs the fiscal measures taken in 2011 or lets the public deficit grow even further.
By CaixaBank research team, in Barcelona | Economic slowdown is difficult to stabilise within a context of rising uncertainty that hampers aggregate demand. Economic activity slowed down in the first quarter of the year with negative growth of 0.1% year-on-year, as shown by the detailed figures for gross domestic product in the first quarter. Private consumption continues to adjust, shrinking by 0.6% year-on-year. Gross fixed capital formation has also decreased…
MADRID | Unmistakably, the reflection that the Italian economic indicators are mirroring should look very familiar to Spanish analysts. The slowdown wave is reaching core Europe too, by the way, as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported this week: the European economies, whether using the ill-established common currency or one on their own, have been found to relate to each other in a more interconnected manner than previously…
Yields on Italian 10-year bonds will keep under tension after the latest economic data brought investors a negative surprise. The country’s GDP suffered a further contraction of -2.5 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2012: the previous figure had been -1.4 percent and market expectations had pointed at -2.3 percent. Industrial production played a major role, with a -7.9 percent year on year rate that was 2.4…
BEIJING | The option that Chinese economy is in a more severe slowdown than the one officially acknowledged has always been in the international community's subconscious. Economists and experts have been aware of a well known, but not so evident, truth where the usually optimistic official data might not be completely reliable. The debate is open, making it difficult to identify the actual reach of the economic consequences born out…
LONDON | The second release of UK GDP figures shed some light on the surprisingly large decline in GDP in the first quarter. The revised figures showed an even larger drop in the construction sector, with -18% or a -1.3% contribution to quarterly GDP growth. Not to worry, said JP Morgan in Monday’s note. Even if the figures are correct, however, the sector only represents 8% of economy (unlike in some other…
It was Germany, with a 0.5 percent growth of GDP in the first quarter of this year, that helped the euro zone avoid enter technical recession territory. GDP remained stable in both the euro are and the EU during January to March of 2012 compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Compared with the same quarter of the previous…
MADRID | The reform of the pension system in Spain is planned to help to improve the outlook for sustainability of the system by reducing pension expenditure as a share of GDP. It should weigh in towards reducing the public deficit, too. At BBVA, analysts have drawn some basic comparisons between the Spanish and the German pension systems. “Given uncertainties about employment, productivity and demographics, it is appropriate for the…