The economy grows 0.6% until March and recovers the pre-pandemic level

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The Spanish economy has started the year on the right foot and with prospects for improvement. INE data show that in the first quarter of 2023 GDP increased by 0.6%, robust growth achieved thanks to the very good performance of exports and also investment, which compensates for the fall in private consumption, which is the most negative of these data. In this way, the National Institute of Statistics (INE) increases the growth of the first quarter by one tenth compared to the advanced data and, in addition, also revises the GDP for the last quarter of 2022 by one tenth, which stands at 0.5% . From January to March, it is exports that drive growth, with an increase of 5.7%, which represents a big jump compared to the negative figures of the previous quarter. The investment boost is also positive, with an increase of 1.8%. For its part, household consumption fell by 1.3%, thus linking two consecutive periods of decline.

Inflation is taking its toll, although organizations such as the Bank of Spain predict a significant recovery in consumption in the second part of the year. “What sustains the Spanish economy are exports, and their good Russia Mobile Number List evolution in general stands out, and it is not only tourism, tourism has an important weight, but non-tourist services and goods are also boosted. It is an evolution that we do not see in our surrounding countries,” comments Oriol Aspachs, from CaixaBank Research. Good news, but accompanied by a nuance. As the economies we export to are slowing down, this may also have an impact on Spain in the coming months. For her part, María Jesús Fernández, from Funcas, highlighted the drop in consumption, which has accumulated a drop of almost 3% in the last two quarters. “We expected that the bulk of the adjustment in consumption would occur in the second part of the year, but it seems that this adjustment is already occurring,” says Fernández.



With these data, the Spanish economy has recovered, after four years, the level prior to the pandemic, that of the end of 2019. This is something that the Ministry of Economy highlights, which also adds that "growth accelerated in the first quarter of the year." year, thanks to the contribution of national demand and especially of the foreign sector to the improvement of the competitiveness of Spanish companies.” The tax authority (Airef) also points out that it has managed to reach the pre-pandemic level of activity in its real-time GDP forecast evolution. According to the latest update, setting the index 100 in the fourth quarter of 2019, on June 21 the GDP would already be at 100.4. However, Spain is one of the last European countries to recover this level of economic activity prior to the pandemic. Punished by the most drastic closure in the first months of the disease and by its dependence on tourism, one of the activities most affected by mobility restrictions, it is one of the economies that has taken the longest to recover those levels.