• Crisis The OECD plunges its growth forecast for Spain by more than two points and exposes the Government

  • Forecasts The Bank of Spain warns: inflation will be even higher in 2022 and the Spanish recovery is "clearly less dynamic"

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has completed this Tuesday the massive correction of forecasts suffered by the Spanish economy and which, at the same time, represents an amendment to the Government's estimates.

The agency

has revised its figures for the second time in just two months

, and now estimates that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will barely rebound 4.6% this year and 5.8% next year.

The forecasts are very much in line with those of the Bank of Spain and the OECD, which have recently also significantly lowered their estimates for Spain, and are significantly different from the data that the Prime Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, follows defending.

Official figures indicate that the economy will grow 6.5% this year and 7% next year.

data that nobody believes

.

Neither the IMF nor the Bank of Spain nor the OECD, but neither are any of the 20 members of the Funcas panel where BBVA Research, CaixaBank, the

CEOE

think tank

or the Savings Banks Foundation itself are located.

The IMF estimate is also subject to high "

uncertainty

" as a direct consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Fund warns that the new wave caused by the omicron variant may have on activity, and emphasizes the fact

that the new variants make vaccination less effective

.

This vaccination process, which is so advanced in Spain, was until now a positive factor in the country's growth prospects, but now the IMF also doubts it and points out that the pandemic could once again paralyze or at least slow down the economy. That is,

depending on the evolution of the pandemic, the figures could be worse

, and a good example of this is the harsh impact that the hospitality industry will already suffer this Christmas. Consumption, which was no longer pulling with the expected force, will be even more contained, and this factor is essential for the Spanish economy. The outlook for it is certainly complex.

The report on Spain that the IMF has published today also addresses the high debt accumulated by the Spanish economy and, as the Bank of Spain or AIReF has done on many occasions,

asks the Government for a medium-term containment plan

. In this process, the IMF considers that it is necessary to improve spending policies but also to raise revenues. The agency cites here the committee of experts for the ambitious tax reform that the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, wants to carry out, and the possibility of especially raising environmental taxes.

Regarding labor reform, the Fund points out that the areas in which work should be done have been correctly identified, but adds that specific policies are still being negotiated by the Government and social agents.

And regarding pensions, he points out that, also in this area, measures are necessary to raise income since the commitment to link pensions to the CPI triggers spending.

By 2050, he calculates, spending on pensions will have grown by 3.5 points of GDP,

which is more than 40,000 million

, and shows his concern about the ability to support this huge expenditure.

For this reason, it proposes to deepen measures such as delaying the retirement age or raising the contributions of the highest income brackets.

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