The government’s economic optimism again exceeds that of the main national and international institutions. The Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, has confirmed on Monday, in an interview in RNE, which will present an improvement of the projection of GDP progress (gross domestic product) in 2025 of two tenths, from 2.4% to 2.6 %, in the Council of Ministers on Tuesday.
The INE advanced last week a 3.2% growth in 2024, above all the expectations that were made throughout last year. This exercise begins with the same dynamic. With the 2.6%projected, the Executive exceeds the last forecast of the Bank of Spain and the Airef, of 2.5%, and those of the IMF, the European Commission and the OECD, of 2.3%.
“We are aware that growing by growing is not enough. This has to get from the macro to the micro, helping to recover purchasing power, ”he stressed in an interview in RNE’s mornings.
It is true that the positive macroeconomic data always collide with a fundamental criticism, that the added figures and national accounting hide stories of precariousness and vulnerability, and that do not measure the evolution of the well -being of all families and the development of all companies and autonomous.
But it is also true that with stagnant economic activity in Germany, and with France besieged by uncertainties, Spain is the positive exception in the European Union (EU) and that strength is reflected in the labor market.
According to the latest Active Population Survey (EPA) known last Tuesday, with figures from all over 2024, our country had a year of intense job creation, with 468,100 jobs, which represents an increase of 2.19% . The unemployment rate fell to 10.6%, the lowest level since the second quarter of 2008. And another exercise has been able to break a record of occupied people, with a historical exercise of 21,857,900 people with employment.
The economic leadership of Spain is also reflected in other unthinkable ratios a decade ago. For example, Spain receives double foreign investment that Germany, Italy and France.
According to a function of Funcas, “foreign direct investment” in our country has increased in recent years to 3% of GDP, on average, in 2023 and 2024. Meanwhile, in Germany it has fallen to 1%, in France to the 0.7% and in Italy 1.4%. Always with respect to the gross domestic product of each country, not in absolute quantities, as can be seen in the first graph of this information.
As is also seen in the important growth of non -tourist services exports, we are no longer just a country of ‘sun and beach’ for the outside. This means that the well -known “private investment deficit is mainly of a national nature: the least prone companies to invest are the Spanish, especially the small businesses that make up the bulk of our productive fabric”, the Funcas article continues. That investment in capital is what the government expects to arouse in 2025.
Of the ‘macro’ to the real economy of families
At the moment, in addition to the strength of the foreign sector, the progress of GDP also nourishes other axes. One is the arrival of immigrants and their incorporation into the labor market. Another, economic, public spending policies, which have supported families and companies in recent years. Revenue protection measures – from the public financing of the ERTE in the pandemic, to the rise of the SMI since 2018, through the labor or pension reform – that have achieved two things.
First, structural changes such as reducing temporality in hiring. Second, together with more specific measures, they have managed to alleviate the consequences of the energy and inflation crisis of recent years, promoting consumption and supporting the investment of companies. Finally, the deployment of the European funds of the recovery plan stimulates this last component of GDP, although it is still the most delayed since 2019.
One of these policies is the workday reduction project. “I think it is important to note that these good growth figures will be compatible, as has been the case in recent years, with that gain, with that conquest of rights, and in this case the next one that comes is the reduction of the day, ”said Carlos body in RNE.
The minister has indicated that the text on the reduction of the day that will also go to the Council of Ministers on Tuesday is the one that was agreed between the Ministry of Labor and the unions. “We respect that text and go to the next step, which is the parliamentary negotiation, where I believe and I am optimistic that there is space to reach an agreement that maintains the ambition of the text that passes tomorrow by the Council of Ministers, to arrive before possible to that effective reduction of the working day at 37 and a half, ”he explained.
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