The definitive data from the INE has confirmed its advance published at the end of January. Despite the pandemic and the war, the Spanish economy had strong growth of 5.5% in 2022, but with a trajectory from more to less, leaving the last few months with almost flat activity. In both the third and fourth quarters, GDP grew by a weak 0.2%, and with consumption and investment in free fall, as confirmed by the final data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) published this morning. In the last quarter of the year, household consumption fell by 1.8% while investment fell by 3.7%.
The truth is that 5.5% was achieved largely due to the 2.2% growth in the second quarter, which was followed, in the second half of the year, by a significant slowdown in activity, with fears that it would even enter in technical recession that finally did not come true.
The end of 2022 with such reduced activity hampers the start of this year that, according to the forecasts published this week by the Bank of Spain, this quarter will grow by 0.3%, although as activity accelerates from spring, it will lead to a 1.6% growth in the whole of 2023.
In this way, after the brutal drop of 11.3% in GDP in 2020 due to the closure of activity decreed to deal with the pandemic, the economy grew by 5.5% for two consecutive years, both in 2021 and 2022. Now According to the Bank of Spain, 1.6% is expected this year to return to levels slightly above 2% in both 2023 and 2024.
According to the data updated today, in the whole of 2022 national demand (consumption and investment) contributed to growth with 3.1 percentage points (they were 2.8 in the advance of January) while external demand (exports and imports) contributed 2.4 points (2.6 in advance).
The Ministry of Economy considers that “this figure is higher than the forecast of the Government and of national and international organisations, and places Spain at the forefront of economic growth among the main countries in the euro zone”. He also adds that it is “balanced growth, with a positive contribution from domestic demand, driven by consumption and investment and an excellent performance of exports.”
