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Interviews 19th April 2012

Something Canadian that Spain may like: public-private partnerships

By Rose Marie Losier, director general at the Canada-Spain Chamber of Commerce | Public infrastructure in Canada has been aging in recent years and the country has seen the need to replace them. In this context, governments at both federal and provincial level, have found in models of public-private partnership (PPP) an interesting formula that allows them to leverage funding and innovation with support from the public sector. What are PPPs? The public-private…

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World economy 18th April 2012

Emerging markets, opportunity or trouble?

By CBRE’s Eduardo Fernández-Cuesta, in Madrid | In a time of extraordinary global economic and political uncertainty, multinational corporations have focused their growth plans in the opportunities offered by emerging markets. Indeed, they are countries attractive for growth and increasingly popular. Turkey, for example, grew by over 8% last year, becoming one of the fastest growing economies worldwide along with Brazil and Mexico, which has based its spectacular development in recent years…

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Spanish economy 18th April 2012

Pharmaceutical co-payment: Spanish pensioners charged 10%

By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | One more twist in the reform plans introduced by the Spanish government: time is up for the public health system… again. The vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said in March that “the matter of the [sanitary] co-payment is not on the table of the Cabinet; it is as simple and crystal clear as that.” In Spain, the pensioners did not have to pay for…

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Spanish economy 18th April 2012

Spain’s cooperation sector shows a country with international ambitions

By Olivier Longué, director general at Acción Contra el Hambre | Spain remains a country that invests in solidarity, even in times of economic distress. Its citizens have given ample evidence of this in recent years, both here in Spain as during the crises that took place outside our borders (Horn of Africa or Haiti). The Spanish people do not seem readily willing to sacrifice the possibility of a better world despite the…

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Markets 18th April 2012

Affaire Repsol: Wall Street criticises Argentina’s move

NEW YORK | Amid a fresh gust of optimism as Spain raised more money than anticipated in a pair of short-term bond auctions and after a solid round of U.S. corporate earnings reports, stock markets rallied on Tuesday. However, shares of Spanish oil group Repsol tumbled more than 6% in the wake of the Argentine government’s move to nationalize Repsol’s part of YPF without saying anything about compensation. Repsol’s share…

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Spanish economy 18th April 2012

Will rubber-stamping bank plans convince the markets? Spain needs growth

MADRID | The Bank of Spain has cleared the plans presented by financial institutions to meet the demanding requirements designed to clean up real estate exposure. As expected, extra needs fall short by 10% to the €50 billion that the government forecast when launching the reform in February. Considerable adjustments undertaken at last year close have eased up the pending effort. Will this encouraging result calm down market concern? There is…

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Spanish economy 17th April 2012

Deutsche Bank: Spain will grow next year, never mind deficit targets

MADRID | Deutsche Bank analysts said that Spain will grow again from 2013, even though the country will not meet the current deficit targets. Spain will this year miss the 5.3% set by Brussels and will not be until 2014, a year later than planned, when the imbalance will be reduced to 3% of GDP. In a note published Tuesday and reported by El Economista, the bank’s experts explained that Spain…

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In Europe 17th April 2012

France, Spain rule the British dream property buy portfolio

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…

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Markets 16th April 2012

The euro and the world

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Spain is the word. Everybody looks at Spain with suspicion because it could be the source, not the cause, of the next and penultimate euro crisis. The premium risk goes up, Argentina prepares a takeover on YPF, and the King breaks his hip and his grandson shoots himself in the foot. The rumours I hear tell me that the nation’s government does not expect any help…

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Markets 16th April 2012

So you want to talk about Spain’s indebtedness

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…