Alex Trelinski
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised its prediction of how far Spain’s economy will grow this year by 0.2% to 2.3%.
The eurozone in contrast has a growth projection for 2025 of just 1%.
According to the IMF announcement on Friday, Spain is the only country among the advanced European economies where the growth forecast has improved.
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Spain’s economy will slow down this year compared to 2024, which pending a final set of figures, finished last year at least 3.1%.
As for 2026, the IMF is currently maintains the growth forecast at 1.8%.
All this comes as the prospects are not so good for the European Union.
“The euro area is recovering slightly, but is disappointingly weak and we have revised it downwards,” said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas.
The body expects growth to pick up but at a slower pace than expected in October.
It states that ‘geopolitical tensions continue to weigh on confidence,’ and suggests growth at 1% in 2025 and 1.4% in 2026.
The IMF has cut two tenths of a percentage point from the growth forecast for 2025 and another tenth from that of 2026, mainly due to a worse-than-expected economic performance for Germany and, to a lesser extent, for France.
