The economic policies implemented during the pandemic have cushioned the impact of the crisis on families’ financial situation. On the one hand, a further fall in household income has been avoided while, on the other, the ECB’s accommodative monetary policy has led to a reduction in debt interest payments. A detailed analysis of the effort required by households to pay off their mortgages, based on CaixaBank’s own internal data, duly reweighted to be representative of the Spanish population, shows that these measures have managed to reduce the mortgage burden during the pandemic for most households, although pockets of vulnerability still remain among low-income households.
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Tourism ended this year’s summer season in great shape with international tourist arrivals coming very close to the records set in 2019, a year that was extremely positive for the industry. Domestic tourism has also continued to post very good figures.
The volatility in commodity prices since the outbreak of the pandemic continues to be a key factor for the economic outlook, given the implications for production costs and the prices consumers pay.
Particularly noteworthy was the strong performance of the consumption indicators, especially car sales and air traffic, suggesting that tourism remains a major driver of economic activity. Moreover, the confidence indicators are showing a positive trend across all sectors, with the exception of construction.
Emerging countries have experienced a number of crises throughout the various cycles of monetary tightening in the US, enduring a very high economic and financial cost. What will be the consequences of the Fed’s rate hikes for their economies?
The retirement of a generation as numerous as the baby boomers will result in the relative growth of the senior population in the coming decades, and this will have significant consequences for how our societies and economies are structured. We analyse the impact and estimate the cost of the ageing of the population in Spain.
We review the current state of the national accounts in Spain and the impact of the partial extension of the measures to support households and the productive sector in mitigating the impact of inflation, evaluating their fiscal cost.
Following the rise in the cost of energy imports in 2022, the recovery of the foreign sector was particularly rapid in 2023 and the four largest economies in the euro area have improved their current account balances, although only Spain has managed to surpass the 2019 figure.
In this first article in a series of two, we review the recent trends in capital investment in Spain and make a comparison with the rest of the euro area. In a second article in this same Monthly Report, we investigate the incentives for investing, based on an analysis of the evolution of profitability and the cost of financing, sector by sector.
Pending an assessment of the impact that the storm which hit Eastern Spain at the end of October may have had on agricultural production in the region, over the coming quarters we expect the positive trend in the sector to gather strength. That said, it will remain highly conditional on how costs evolve, as well as on the easing of the drought.
The devastation caused by the floods could subtract between 10 and 20 basis points from Spain’s GDP in Q4 2024. This estimate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and assumes a significant impact on Valencia’s primary sector, a moderate impact on its industry and a milder impact on trade. The estimate for 2025 will depend largely on the scale of the investments allocated to reconstruction and the replenishment of the capital destroyed in the floods, as well as on the support measures that are implemented.
Despite the unprecedented economic downturn caused by COVID-19, the cost of financing public debt is at an all-time low. To what extent do these interest rates lie behind the macroeconomic fundamentals?
The US’ tariff hikes of between 10 and 20 pps should have a limited impact on the Spanish economy, less than in other advanced economies, but some sectors could be more affected.
International tourism tends to be the main focus of attention when we talk about Spain’s tourism industry. However, domestic tourism also plays an important role: Spaniards travel more than 175 million times a year within Spain and generate an associated tourist expenditure of 30,000 million euros1. In this article, we examine the recent trends in Spain’s domestic tourism and discuss the main differences between domestic and international tourists.
- 1A trip is considered to be any journey made to a main destination outside the person’s customary zone of residence that entails at least one overnight stay outside this zone.
Due to the pandemic, the current situation of the Spanish economy is very complex. The case of retail is no exception, although it is proving to be remarkably resilient in the face of all the restrictions on opening hours and capacity adopted in order to curb the pandemic. As revealed by the sector’s demand and employment indicators, retail trade is now close to, but below, its pre-COVID level. Despite this, an analysis of CaixaBank’s internal data shows very different figures for large and small companies, as well as for the different branches of activity, confirming that the sector has yet to recover completely.
The COVID-19 crisis is severely affecting house purchases. Once the slump in transactions during the lockdown has been overcome, the evolution in demand will largely depend on the recovery of the labour market and international tourism over the coming months. Our forecast scenario predicts a gradual recovery in demand, although the more than half a million transactions recorded in 2019 will not be repeated, even in 2021.
The Spanish economy has kicked off 2025 with widespread growth, albeit slightly more moderate than that of the previous year. Despite the global challenges, such as the protectionist shift in the US, half of its sectors are showing signs of expansion, most notably the chemicals and pharmaceutical industry. This buoyancy across the various sectors, coupled with the country’s competitive advantage in renewable energies, bolsters the resilience of the economy amid an uncertain international environment.
The automotive industry is an important driver of growth and prosperity worldwide due to its contribution (i) in social terms, by facilitating people’s mobility in an efficient, safe and affordable way, and (ii) in economic terms, as a driver of innovation, a generator of good quality jobs and a pillar of international trade. In the case of Spain, it has become a mainstay of our industry and a benchmark on a global scale, thanks to a large production capacity and high productivity resulting from a skilled workforce and a great degree of plant automation. The economic crisis caused by the pandemic has taken its toll on a sector that is in the midst of a technological transformation towards electrification. A necessary transition that will be strongly supported by the Next Generation EU (NGEU) funds.
Owning a second home is a widespread practice in Spain. In fact, second homes make up 14.6% of all Spanish housing, this figure exceeding 30% in some provinces. Where are these second homes located? What kind of household owns them? Understanding their distribution throughout Spain in relation to the usual place of residence is of great help in analysing the behaviour of the real estate market at a local level. Once again, we can use big data techniques to process the information and identify more complex dynamics than with traditional methods.
Activity in Spain’s agrifood sector is increasing at a faster rate than across the economy as a whole and the outlook for the 2024-2025 campaign is encouraging. Exports are holding up well in the adverse environment of recent years and the food price rally has begun to slow, although the cumulative increase since 2019 remains significant.