The Catalan economy grew by 0.3% in the third quarter of the year despite the fact that industry has accumulated falls so far this year. The GDP growth data -published today by Idescat- is slightly better (two tenths more) than that estimated a little over a month ago.
This improvement in the quarterly data also occurs in the year-on-year period, which shows growth of 4.3%. They are three tenths better than the estimate in November for the third quarter of the year.
Idescat has assured today that the improvement in the economy is supported by the "increase in domestic demand (2.1%)", especially in terms of investment, which increased by 5.4%. The agency has also highlighted the "increase in total exports of goods and services abroad (10.5%)."
Comparatively, the Catalan economy grew in the third quarter in year-on-year terms five tenths above the Spanish economy (3.8%) and almost two points more than the EU-27 (2.5%). The quarter-on-quarter variation of GDP in Catalonia is also better than the advance for Spain as a whole: 0.3% vs. 0.2%. On the other hand, it is one tenth below the growth of the whole of the EU (0.4%).
Idescat considers that the constant increase in prices has led household consumption to grow at a rate of 1%. It is almost a third of the growth rate of the previous quarter (2.8%).
In industry, the branches of activity with the worst performance are the metallurgical, chemical and textile industries.
