• Crisis The economy accumulates negative surprises and AIReF already points to a fall of more than 1% in the first quarter

The economy faces a new contraction in the first quarter of the year, which threatens Spain after the country suffered its greatest collapse in peacetime after falling by 11% last year.

Data such as the estimate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in real time from the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF) indicated this, and that is what the Bank of Spain confirms in the economic projections published this Tuesday.

"

The Spanish GDP could have fallen slightly in the period January-March 202

1", points out the organization, which in its central scenario foresees a fall of 0.4%.

In its most adverse scenario, on the other hand, the data reaches -0.9%, while in the mildest scenario it does include the possibility that an advance of 0.4% will finally take place.

However, the BdE maintains that its most likely scenario is the one that includes this contraction, and whose reason is in the restriction measures that the Government has applied to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

"The starting point for the level of activity at the beginning of 2021 was somewhat higher than that contemplated in the central scenario published in December," explains the Bank of Spain, which points out that the evolution of the economy in the fourth quarter of 2020 It was better than I expected.

"However, in the first two months of this year, the new tightening of measures to contain the third wave of the pandemic

would have once again had a negative impact on the dynamism of the economy

[especially in the branches related to tourism, transport and hospitality] ", he adds.

"There has been an accumulation of negative surprises that has been partially offset by improvements in world growth forecasts," summarized Óscar Arce, head of the Department of Economics and Statistics at the Bank of Spain.

A significant drop in

registrations

, bad

membership

data

or the "appreciable and generalized drop in

Google mobility and in the sale of gasoline and diesel

" offered by Repsol's research service, Arce specifically mentioned.

GDP forecasts.

Bank of Spain.

2020-2023

With that estimate, and also with the delay of part of the European funds until 2022, the BdE forecasts that growth in 2021 will be 6%.

This supposes a sensible reduction of eight tenths

with respect to the forecast of December and, in addition, that the new projection is further away from the official figures of the Government.

Of the almost 10% that is included in the General State Budgets and, also, of the 7% that the Vice President of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, increasingly defends with more intensity, knowing that the figures on which

the estimates of expenses and income is practically impossible

.

Herd immunity, at the end of the year

The annual figures from the BdE are also based on a forecast that the economy will grow strongly in the second quarter of the year, as the restrictive measures disappear and the vaccination process advances.

However, he rules out a normal summer campaign, and also does not believe that herd immunity will be reached at the end of the summer.

The Government continues to defend this position but the BdE anticipates that immunity will be achieved at the end of the year, something that is in line with the projections published by EL MUNDO this Tuesday.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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