• According to the INE, the per capita GDP of 15 communities is below the European average and only Madrid and the Basque Country exceed it

The

beginning of 2023 will be complex

.

The Bank of Spain is very clear on this point in its latest macroeconomic forecasts that it has presented this Tuesday, and in which it also offers the keys to the tough start to the course: high inflation, rising rates and low confidence.

After a " significant

" slowdown

in the third quarter of this year and with the economy showing "a similar degree of dynamism" in the previous quarter, "in the coming months it is expected that the dynamics of Spanish activity continue to be characterized by a

considerable weakness

", warns the body led by Pablo Hernández de Cos.

And "those next few months" will be, mainly, the first quarter of the year, a period in which

the expected growth is barely one tenth

.

The Bank of Spain therefore does not anticipate a recession, although the general director of Economy and Statistics, Ángel Gavilán, wanted to stress that no scenario can be ruled out.

Neither, therefore, the recession.

"At the beginning of next year,

inflationary pressures

are expected to continue to be high, the

tightening of financial conditions

to continue, relatively low levels of confidence to persist and global economic activity to show little dynamism", the supervisor deepens in his December projections.

Later, once spring arrives, the situation will begin to change and activity "will

regain increasing dynamism

".

The factors that will promote this reactivation are "the gradual easing of tensions in the energy markets and of inflationary pressures", as well as the expected deployment of European funds and "the gradual resolution of the distortions in the global supply chains".

In this context, the Bank of Spain expects the economy to experience the following behaviour: growth of 4.6% for this year and 1.3% for the next, which represents an increase of one tenth of a percentage point in the figure for 2022 and a reduction, also of one tenth, for 2023. Likewise, in 2024 the expected figure is 2.7%, two tenths less, and for 2025 it offers for the first time an estimate that reaches 2.1%.

Regarding inflation, the data that the BdE for 2022 is 8.4%, which represents three tenths less, and 4.9% for 2023, a figure that represents a significant downward revision of seven tenths.

By 2024, on the other hand, the agency raises the data by 1.7 percentage points and takes it to 3.6%.

These modifications, explains the Bank of Spain, are due to a greater reduction than expected in recent months, the incorporation into all of 2023 of some measures that the Government will keep in force and that when they are withdrawn, in 2024, would cause the aforementioned rebound.

Inflation, in any case,

will remain high for a long period of time

.

consumption does not pull

The Bank of Spain also underlines that an essential factor as essential for the Spanish economy as household consumption is not pulling.

"Compared to other demand items,

household consumption shows a particularly delayed recovery

from pre-pandemic levels; it is still more than five percentage points below the level reached in the fourth quarter of 2019," he explains.

Gavilán explained that "the recourse to the savings bank that households accumulated in the most acute phases of the pandemic

would have been relatively small

and would not have meant a significant boost to spending levels."

Why?

"Because only 15% of the households that saved would have dissaved," he explained.

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