The economy maintains a path of increases in 2023. Despite the fact that it will slow down throughout this year, it will continue in positive figures. What are the ingredients so that Spain does not have to fear a recession or zero growth, as will happen in many European countries? Among other issues, that family consumption, domestic demand, “maintains a positive trend”explained Víctor Ausín, General Director of Macro Economic Analysis of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.
This consumption was high in 2022, but as Ausín has indicated in the III Finance Observatory organized by EL ESPAÑOL and Invertia, “We are seeing this trend continue in the first quarter of the year“.
Because? Among other issues due to the stored savings of families that accumulated during the outbreak of Covid. According to Ausín, they started using it in the second half of 2022 and they still have a lot to spend. “Domestic demand will resist and stored savings are offsetting inflationary costs“, has specified.
Víctor Ausín Rodríguez, General Director of Macroeconomic Analysis of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation
However, not only with internal demand feeds the economy. He foreign sector It is another element that is bringing joy to the Spanish GDP, which is feeding on other more resilient and crisis-resistant sectors.
Finally, the third leg that is sustaining GDP growth is the employment, which, it should be remembered, is at historical levels for Social Security contributors. “We haven’t hit our ceiling yet. Surely our structural unemployment has been reduced and there is still room to create more jobs.”
In fact, it predicts that by 2025 structural unemployment has fallen to 2.6 million people (in 2018 it was at 3.1 million). On the other hand, he has celebrated that the temporary employment rate is at 15.6%, “very close to the European average” of 14%. You also celebrate the implementation of measures that facilitate the internal flexibility of companies, such as ERTE.
According to the inflation He has affirmed that his department predicts that “at the end of the year the two rates will end up coming together”, the normal CPI and the subjacent one, thanks to the reduction in energy prices.
On the other hand, it has affirmed that the measures taken in the VAT on food they are noticed. According to data from Ausín, products with tax reductions registered a month-on-month price drop of 1.4%, while the rest of the food rose 1.8%. “The translation of the effect of the measures is practically total.”
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