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To date, the investments already approved as part of the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) amount to 12,249 million euros, compared to total planned investments of 16,644 million euros. This represents an approval rate of 74%, which in principle looks promising in terms of getting the most out of the NGEU funds that Portugal will receive up until 2026.

In Spain, households have begun to reduce the savings accumulated during the pandemic in order to sustain their consumption levels in an environment of high inflation. The fall in the savings rate has also been reflected in Spanish households’ financial assets.

The uncertainty generated by Brexit is already affecting economic growth (mainly in the United Kingdom, and in particular in the form of a suspension of investment projects) and it could hinder business relations with Spain in the short term.

The CaixaBank Research real estate clock shows the evolution of home prices and sales in Spain throughout the cycle. In 2024, the «clock» will remain in the slowdown quadrant, before giving way to 2025, when we expect the housing market to return to expansive territory.

CaixaBank Research’s forecast scenario for the Spanish economy, which was finalised before the outbreak of the war in Iran, anticipates dynamic growth in 2026, albeit more moderate than that of recent years. Domestic demand, and especially private consumption and investment, began the year with sufficient momentum to enjoy strong growth and continue leading the recovery. However, the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East opens a new chapter of global economic and political uncertainty.

In mid-2020 the Chinese government announced a series of strict rules on access to credit in the real estate sector, which had historically followed a growth model based on high leverage. However, these measures not only managed to limit debt in the sector, but also exposed its vulnerabilities. In this article, we look at the biggest risks of this strategy.

In recent years, European inflation has been stubbornly below the ECB’s desired rate, and since 2018 it has been slipping even further away. This weakness has intensified with the COVID-19 crisis. Will this weakness be temporary or permanent?

It has been almost four months since our last update to the macroeconomic scenario. During these months, the Spanish economy has shown a more resilient tone than expected. Furthermore, the normalisation of gas prices, although incomplete, has been confirmed and the peak in reference interest rates is now in sight. Faced with all these changes, we have updated our macro forecast scenario.

Although around 80% of Spanish exports to the United States are concentrated in five autonomous communities, no region is facing significant systemic risks. 

In a month in which, unfortunately, geopolitical risk is once again taking centre stage, in the Dossier on the 2024 Outlook we review the key themes and forecasts for next year. The first theme is precisely how difficult it will be to recover a balance in the macroeconomy, in a world in which geopolitical instability has reached levels not seen in many decades.

The resistance exhibited by international economic activity, the reduction of uncertainty and the improvement in growth projections indicate a better immediate outlook. However, the world economy is not out of the woods yet. 

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.