Bank of Spain’s Governor, Luis Maria Linde, gave reasons for global investors to be optimistic about the fourth biggest economy of the Eurozone by presenting data indicating that the country’s pace of growth exceeded expectations in the second quarter of 2014.
After emerging from a two-year downturn in the middle of 2013, Spain’s economy has continued showing signs of recovery. However, the Governor warned that the pace of growth is expected to slow down by the end of 2014. On the whole, the head of Spain’s Central Bank told the Parliament that the economy was expected to grow in 2015 at an average rate of two per cent.
Government projections indicated that 2014 will witness a 1.3 per cent growth as opposed to a 1.2 per cent contraction in 2013. Sustained growth in 2013 and 2014 is expected to serve as certain proof that Spain’s six year of economic troubles, which brought it close to total financial collapse, has come to an end.
Predicting two per cent growth in 2015, the government’s draft budget indicated that the earlier estimates of 1.2 per cent growth in 2014 and 1.8 per cent growth in 2015 will certainly be surpassed.
However, international institutions like the OECD and the IMF adopted a conservative approach and predicted 2014 growth at 1.2 per cent and 2015 growth to fall below the budget estimate to just 1.6 per cent.