2023-10-19 02:48:09
The sustained slowdown in the main European economies is already beginning to be reflected in national activity. With the German locomotive at idle, the French market at half throttle and the rest of the destinations of Spanish exports in decline, two of the main Spanish economic sectors, industry and services, notice the slowdown in their numbers, which month after month The reversal of growth in the last quarter of the year is already being felt and anticipated, already anticipated by the Bank of Spain, Airef or the OECD, which pointed to almost flat growth in the final sprint of the year, two tenths maximum of momentum in the GDP.
If until now the decline had been focused on products destined for industrial manufacturing, the puncture has extended to consumer items, a definitive fact that should set off all the alarms. Thus, it is a matter of time before the slowdown impacts activity and employment, with companies already raising regulatory files due to the drop in the forecast of immediate orders.
And that is directly reflected in the industry’s business figures, which plummeted another 6.2% last August compared to the same month in 2022, 1.1 points lower than in July. This situation is mainly due to the decline in sales of energy and intermediate goods, since these decreased by 17.7% and 13.1%, respectively, according to data released yesterday by the INE. Along with them, capital goods also fell, 0.9%.
With this year-on-year decline in August, the industry’s turnover has now been experiencing five months of year-on-year declines. However, this last month has been more pronounced than that registered the previous month (-5.1%).
Furthermore, all markets presented negative annual rates in August, with special impact on the foreign market of the euro zone (-6.3%). Industrial income increased in the last year only in three autonomous communities, in the Canary Islands (+9.5%), La Rioja (+3.7%) and the Basque Country (+0.5%), while in the remaining 14 the results were negative. The largest decreases occurred in Cantabria (-16.8%), Balearic Islands (-16.6%) and Principality of Asturias (-13.5%).
For its part, the services sector reduced its turnover by 0.5% last August compared to the same month in 2022, thus resuming the declines after in July it presented a year-on-year increase in sales of 1.5%. The INE points out that this decline was a consequence of the drop in trade turnover by 2.2%, mainly due to the setback in sales in wholesale trade (-8.3%), which shows that the consumption of homes collapse. Other services performed better, as a result of the summer effect, such as the sale and repair of vehicles and motorcycles, with a turnover of 11.6%, or retail trade, 7.8% more, benefiting from the holiday period. Other services that increased their year-on-year sales were administrative activities (+8.5%), hospitality (+5.6%), professional activities (+4.5%) and information and communications (+4.1%). Within the hospitality industry, accommodation services increased their sales by 8.3%, while food and beverage services invoiced 3.5% more than in August 2022. On the other hand, transportation and storage sales decreased by 3.5%. 3.6%. In monthly terms, and in data corrected for seasonality and calendar, the sector showed clear stagnation, despite the fact that the data is from the month of August, in full vacation impact, with a minimum increase of 0.1%, seven tenths below of the rebound achieved in July.
In general terms, the Spanish economy advanced a scant 0.4% between April and June, one tenth less than the expected growth for the first quarter (0.5%) and two tenths less than the 0.6% predicted by most analyses. due to the collapse of exports of goods and services. And the Bank of Spain has left the expected GDP growth in the last quarter of the year at one tenth, which anticipates the slowdown that is already seen for 2024, after having lowered the growth forecast by four tenths, to 1.8%, and warn of the weakening of the economy and the rise in inflation, which could return to around 6%. The Government itself has lowered it by four tenths, to 2%, due to a lower contribution from national demand and despite the moderation of the negative impact of external demand.
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