Spain’s economy expanded 3.2 percent last year, outstripping official forecasts and far outperforming its eurozone peers, preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute showed on yesterday.
Spanish Minister of Economy, Trade and Business Carlos Cuerpo said this week the government would raise its forecast for this year from the current 2.4 percent following the annual data, which was buoyed by a tourism boom as well as a strong agriculture industry and higher exports.
Economic growth should remain robust this year and next thanks to consumer spending, boosted by falling unemployment, and investment, brokerage Jefferies said in a note to investors. Spain’s unemployment rate dropped in the fourth quarter to its lowest level in 16 years, data showed on Tuesday.
Photo: AFP
Still, the rising cost of living and a housing crisis that has pushed prices through the roof in big cities has dented living standards despite the growth, Renta 4 brokerage head of strategy Natalia Aguirre told reporters, forecasting a slowdown in private consumption.
Analysts also point to Spain’s below-par GDP per capita in Western Europe and its snail-paced growth that clocked just about 4 percent since 2007.
The country’s economy expanded 0.8 percent in the last three months of the year from the previous three, the same pace as the quarter before.
Recently both France and Germany lowered their growth outlooks for this year to 0.9 percent and 0.3 percent respectively, while Italy expects a 1.2 percent expansion. All three are due to release GDP data today.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to
RSS