THE NEW YEAR THAT CAME WITH A BRIGHT SPOT IN THE SPANISH ECONOMY

Money MattersNewssliderSpain
29 Dec, 2018
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THE NEW YEAR THAT CAME WITH A BRIGHT SPOT IN THE SPANISH ECONOMY

Spanish exports to Singapore rose to 49.5%

 

Source: La Moncloa Gobierno de España
21 December 2018
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All sectors in the Spanish economy enjoyed export growth from January to October 2018, latest period for which records are available. The capital goods sector, which accounts for 19.7% of the total, grew by 1.1%. The automobile sector (15.8% of the total) grew by 0.6%. And food, drinks and tobacco (15.9% of the total) grew by 0.4%.

Exports to the European Union (65.7% of the total) rose by 3.8% as did exports to the Eurozone (51.5% of the total), while those to the rest of the European Union (14.2% of the total) rose by 4.1%.

Exports to third countries (34.3% of the total) also rose by 3.8% during the period, with increases in exports to Africa (5%), North America (4.2%), Asia excluding the Middle East (2.9%) and Latin America (0.2%). By country, there were noteworthy increases in exports to Singapore (up 49.5%), Algeria (26.7%), Egypt (26%), the United States (4.2%) and Morocco (4%).

The autonomous regions with the largest growth in exports were Navarre (13%), Cantabria (10.2%) and the Balearic Islands (9.3%).

The main positive contributions to export growth came from the capital goods sector (contribution of 2.7 points), energy products (contribution of 2.2 points), chemical products (contribution of 1.4 points) and non-chemical semi-manufactures (contribution of 1.3 points).

In October, Spanish exports of goods rose by 9% on the same month of 2017 to 26.41 billion euros.

 

Now the sour note (if only we could just skip this!)

To put it briefly: Imports rose by 6.3% to 266.6 billion euros. Consequently, the trade deficit for the first 10 months of the year stands at 28.02 billion euros, 33% up on the figure recorded for the same period of 2017.

Imports grew in all sectors. Imports of capital goods (20.5% of the total) rose by 1.6% year-on-year, energy products (15% of the total) grew by 20.2% year-on-year, chemical products (15.3% of the total) grew by 8.6% and the automobile sector (12.6% of the total) grew by 3.9%.

The seasonally-adjusted figure corrected by the calendar effect shows export growth of 6% year-on-year while imports rose by 9.6%.

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Featured image/Yuiizaa September, Unsplash