Economists cut the GDP forecast for this year to 3.8% and the next to 0.9%, well below the Government’s calculations
One of the most repeated mantras by the Government is that Spain is the fastest growing economy in the eurozone, despite the slowdown caused by the war. But the data published this Monday by Eurostat leaves this theory in question since the average of the countries of the euro zone advanced in the third quarter of the year (from July to September) by 0.2%, the same as Spain, with countries like Italy (0.5%) or Portugal (0.4%) growing double.
Thus, while in the second quarter Spain grew at a rate of 1.5% quarter-on-quarter while the eurozone only advanced 0.8%, it has now caught up due to the slowdown in the Spanish economy despite the fact that the third quarter has received the pull of the tourism sector for the summer season.
The bloc countries that grew the most in this period for which data is available were Italy (0.5%), Lithuania (0.4%) and Portugal (0.4%). Others like Germany (0.3%), where analysts predict an economic recession this year, also advanced above Spain and France remained at the same level (0.2%).
Of course, on a year-on-year basis, the data for Spain continue to exceed those for Europe, with a growth rate of 3.8% in the third quarter compared to 2.1% for the eurozone. For this reason, the Ministry of Economy clings to this data and indicates that the Spanish economy was “the second with the highest year-on-year growth in the EU”, only behind Potugal (4.9%).
Forecasts get worse
Different organizations have been cutting their forecast for GDP growth, especially that of 2023. But the General Council of Economists (CGE) has gone a step further after knowing the data for the third quarter and they estimate a zero growth of the economy in the fourth quarter, which will mean that in 2022 the GDP will only grow by 3.8%, six tenths less than the Government’s forecast.
In addition, for the first quarter of 2023 they expect the country to contract by 0.3% and advance by only 0.9% in the total for the year, six tenths less than their previous estimates and 1.2 percentage points below the government estimate. It is the most pessimistic forecast for now, since the IMF, the OECD or the Bank of Spain forecast that Spain will grow from 1.1% to 1.5% next year.
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