2023-10-11 04:15:00
BBVA Research yesterday maintained its forecasts for the Spanish economy and that of the generality of the autonomous communities (including Asturias) in 2023, but revised downwards its estimates for 2024 due to the worsening of the European situation, the recent increase in the price of oil , the rise in interest rates and the community demand for a more restrictive fiscal policy starting next year to redirect the countries’ fiscal deficits.
For Asturias, it therefore maintains the announced growth of 2.1% for this year.three tenths lower than the Spanish average (which is consolidated at 2.4%), which places the Principality as the ninth region in the autonomous “ranking” of dynamism, tied with Andalusia, Galicia and the Valencian Community.
The cuts in the prediction for 2024 are three tenths in the case of Spain compared to the previous projection and six in Asturias. Although the reduction is greater for the Asturian economy, BBVA maintains its expectation (announced on September 19) that the Principality will grow next year above the Spanish average, although with a much smaller differential. If until now it estimated an improvement rate in 2024 of 2.1% for the Spanish case and 2.5% for Asturias (four tenths higher), its new calculations point to growth of 1.8% for the country as a whole and of 1.9% (only one tenth more) for the Asturian economy. If this forecast materializes, Asturias would gain two places in the “ranking” of regional growth even with the cut in the forecast. Next year it would be the seventh most dynamic community, tied with the Valencian Community.
The contribution of the industry to GDP (higher than the national average) and the lower relative weight of services (and, in particular, tourism services) explain, according to BBVA, Asturias’ divergent trajectory with respect to the average. For the current year, BBVA believes that Asturias, La Rioja, Cantabria, the Basque Country, Navarra, the Valencian Community and Galicia “will maintain progress below the average as they have not yet experienced a clear improvement in the industry.”
On the contrary, “the advance of industrial activity, favored by an improvement in European demand and the elimination of bottlenecks, should allow for above-average GDP growth in most Northern regions,” case of Asturias, the bank said yesterday.
The recovery of the Asturian industry seems not going to be so immediate, judging by Hispalink’s prediction – which postpones it to 2025 -, and this lower expectation seems to be – together with the general slowdown in advanced economies – behind the reduction of BBVA’s optimism about Asturian behavior in 2024.
Employment
The study points out that employment will “moderate” its growth in Spain “after the general dynamism of affiliation during the first half of the year”, despite which employment will increase this year by 2.5% in the country as a whole to slow down to 1.8% in 2024. It also points out that Social Security affiliation will grow less from now on in all the autonomous communities and remembers that, corrected for the seasonality of the data, the number of contributors already fell between July and September in Asturias, Cantabria and Andalusia.
Even so, he maintains that Asturias will be one of the regions in which employment will grow the most in 2024 in terms of the active population survey (EPA). The advance will be 2.2% in the Principality (three tenths more than the GDP), the same as in Aragon and the Basque Country, and only less than that of Madrid (2.7%).
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