The Government rules out that Spain enters a recession next year, and places growth in 2023 at around 2%, as stated yesterday by both the First Vice President and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. "It is a recovery that is confirmed by all national and international organizations, which forecast a growth of the Spanish economy of around 4% this year and around 2% next year," Calviño said in his speech before the Commission to the European Union in Parliament. The official forecasts maintained by the Government, and which will be updated with the new budgets, expected in mid-October, establish a 4.3% increase in GDP this year and 2.7% in 2023. Mention the environment of the 2 % can be interpreted as preparing the ground for the lowering of forecasts, although Economy denies this, and affirms that they keep their macro picture intact until the next review.
“Growth forecasts for 2023 are around 2%, that means that all organizations expect Spain to continue to have strong growth and it is largely due to the measures we take to respond to the pandemic and to European funds. ”, said María Jesús Montero to the Sixth.
The European Commission forecasts growth for Spain next year of 2.1%, six tenths below the official Government forecast.
The point is that the end of this year and the beginning of the next are expected to be complicated. The Airef already anticipated at the beginning of September that the GDP could fall by 0.4% in the third quarter of the year in interquarterly rate, according to the data available at that time. For his part, the president of BBVA pointed out last week at the Cercle d'Economia that the Spanish economy could have two quarters of negative growth, which would be the fourth of this year and the first of 2023. These are the warnings that are multiplying from curbing economic growth and the possibilities of entering a recession. Technically, chaining two quarters of falls is considered a recession.
What nobody disputes is that this year the Spanish economy will grow by around 4%. The boost given by the first two quarters of the year allows it to practically guarantee this objective. However, this positive figure for the year as a whole could coincide with the last two flat quarters. In addition, the slowdown in GDP growth in the final stretch of the year has a considerable impact on the start of the next; with what it would mean to condition the results of 2023.
"We are on alert, very attentive," said the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, who was especially concerned about the situation in countries like Germany, more dependent on Russian gas than Spain.
