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2025 is set to be a year of change between a world that has not quite died yet (globalisation, multilateralism, liberal democracies) and another that has not quite been born and which nobody knows what shape it will take.

The international economy showed remarkable resilience in 2024 and the available data suggest that world GDP may have grown slightly above 3%. The tailwinds that supported economic activity will likely continue to blow in 2025, albeit with less strength and in the face of significant challenges.

Spain’s GDP continued to record dynamic growth in Q3 2024 and the main indicators suggest this trend will continue in Q4. The strength of the labour market is boosting household incomes and inflation remains contained, despite the ongoing rebound.

Despite the expected reduction in the deficit to around 5.0% of GDP in 2022, the Treasury’s funding needs will remain high. This leads to the question of whether it could experience difficulties in capturing this funding now that the ECB has announced that it will be reducing its purchases of public debt.

Portugal’s growth in the first quarter of the year fell short of expectations, shrinking 0.5% quarter-on-quarter according to the preliminary estimate of Portugal’s National Statistics Institute.

Fiscal activism is not declining in the US. Following the vast disbursements of 2020 and 2021, fiscal activity is now focusing on negotiations regarding the new stimulus packages proposed by the Biden administration: The American Jobs Plan (AJP, which revolves around infrastructure) and The American Family Plan (AFP, with a social focus). But what can we expect to come out of these negotiations?

The surge in uncertainty and the tariff hikes introduce downside risks to global growth, as well as upside risks to US inflation, while the impact on prices for the rest of the world is much more uncertain. 

According to CaixaBank’s internal data, consumption grew by 2.2% in Spain during Q2 2022, despite the decline in consumer confidence due to the inflationary pressures and economic uncertainty.

The war that has broken out in Ukraine makes it now very difficult to predict the course of economic activity, but with every day that passes it seems increasingly unlikely that growth will reach the 5% which we were expecting it to exceed.

The AIReF has ruled that the pension spending rule agreed with the European Commission has not been violated, although it has pointed out that complying with this rule does not guarantee the sustainability of the pension system or that of the general government as a whole. Moreover, it has warned that it will be necessary to increase government transfers to the Social Security system in order to sustain it between now and 2050.

How has the demand for technological goods in Spain evolved? We analyse what has happened according to different sociodemographic segments through the use of duly anonymised internal CaixaBank data.

Trump’s tariffs deal a blow to investor risk appetite and sovereign yield curves steepen on both sides of the Atlantic, as the central banks try to navigate the tidal surge. The stock markets register high volatility and the commodities most dependent on the business cycle fall.

That being the case, for the moment, and while we wait for events to unfold, it seems that our economy ought to weather this period of uncertainty better than our main trading partners.

Economic activity is showing signs of a slowdown and inflation fell below 2% in March for the first time since August 2024.

After using our consumption indicator to analyse the data on expenditure at petrol stations paid for with CaixaBank customer bank cards, we once again found that not all consumers reacted equally to the rise in fuel prices.

Now, although the ECB has tightened the conditions required for an interest rate hike, there are more factors to support the idea that medium-term inflation could lie at 2%, and after more than a decade without doing so the ECB may finally raise interest rates.

After growing by 3.2% in 2024, in 2025 the economy is expected to continue to grow above the euro area average, supported by strong household consumption and the recovery of investment. The major geopolitical challenges and Europe’s weak growth represent the main risk factors.

It is surprising that the US labour market, known for being one of the most flexible in the world, is taking so long to regain normality, given that GDP recovered pre-pandemic levels back in Q2 2021. Is this a transitional phenomenon or a sign of structural change?

At least for now, and despite the depreciation it has accumulated so far this year, the value of the dollar does not appear to reflect any major change in the currency’s central role in the international monetary system.