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De-risking, decoupling, fracturing, reshoring, nearshoring, friendshoring... understanding the new era of globalisation

A sense of unstable balance will dominate the performance of the economy throughout 2024 – something which we will no doubt have to get used to and which will demand considerable flexibility among economic agents when it comes to making decisions. Such are the times in which we live.

The pace of growth of the Spanish economy has slowed, as evidenced by the lower GDP growth rate recorded in Q3. The main reason for this is the weakness of the external environment: the euro area has registered a slight decline in economic activity and its three main economies are stagnant. In contrast, the statistics for household consumption in Spain, one of the pillars of the economy, remain strong.

El tercer volumen de nuestra colección Nuevos Paradigmas está marcado, como no podía ser de otra manera, por los efectos de la COVID-19 y su papel como aceleradora de tendencias que ha hecho emerger nuevas formas de percibir y gestionar situaciones derivadas de la crisis sanitaria. En él abordamos las perspectivas económicas de 2022, la evolución de la desigualdad, las tendencias de consumo, el impacto de los fondos de recuperación europeos y el papel de las democracias en tiempos de pandemia.

Political uncertainty, the main source of volatility in the market, reduced investors’ appetite for risk in June, resulting in a marked reduction compared to May, although it remained high.

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.

In 2024, Spain reduced its exports to the European Union and the United States, so it had to seek out opportunities in new markets in order to diversify and strengthen its trade relations. These new markets primarily included countries in ASEAN, Latin America and the Caribbean Islands, as well as Oceania.

The savings of Spaniards went from 5,800 euros per household in 2023 to more than 7,000 in 2024. Why has the household savings rate increased and what do we expect for 2025?

As has been evident in recent weeks, there are few things more important than having a proper exit strategy once a mission comes to an end. This also applies to the economy, where the appropriateness of indefinitely maintaining the economic policy programme which, quite rightly, has been used for the past year and a half to address the crisis triggered by the pandemic is beginning to be questioned.

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.

The announcement of a significant and widespread increase in tariffs by the Trump administration, coupled with an erratic and unpredictable economic policy, has triggered fears of a further slowdown in the global economy. In this context, it is time to re-evaluate where the Spanish economy currently stands, assessing its strengths and weaknesses in the new scenario.