Spain economic growth outperforms Germany in first quarter

The 2015 resurgence of Spain’s economy has continued encouragingly into 2016, with data published at the weekend by the country’s Markit Composite PMI Index revealing that Spanish GDP grew by 0.6% in the first three months of the year…

During the same period, the euro area average was 0.3% growth, while Germany managed growth of just 0.4%. Hence, Spain’s economy grew at a faster rate than that of Germany, and also beat Italy and France as lacklustre growth affected most of the largest Eurozone countries.

According to the Index, Spain’s performance of 55.1 PMI in March beat analyst forecasts, as well as projections by Bloomberg, which had recently called on Spanish leaders to ensure that the shoots of recovery recorded last year were appropriately nurtured into 2016.

That, at least, appears to be happening, even if the country is currently rudderless as it wrestles with the current political impasse. All signs point to a re-election in June unless a leader can be identified among the four leading parties.

Nevertheless, the political situation has not dampened job growth, with March adding more than 50,000 additional positions, marking two consecutive months of significant falls in Spain’s unemployment figures.

Further data published last week showed how Spain’s service sector expanded to a four-month high in March as the country managed to avoid the traditional post-Christmas slump that can sometimes weigh on its service sector employment figures.