Spanish economy rebounds in the second quarter and is growing again

BarcelonaThe Spanish economy recovered growth in the second quarter of the year. The gross domestic product (GDP) - the indicator that measures the size of an economy - of the State grew by 2.8% compared to the first three months of 2021 and thus returned to positive figures, according to preliminary data advanced this Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). In the first quarter, GDP fell by 0.4%.

Compared with the second quarter of 2020, when the economy experienced a sharp decline because of the tighter lockdowns, the rebound in GDP is 19.8%.

Household consumption and business investment are the main drivers of economic recovery in Spain, although government spending also helped. In this sense, households' final consumption increased by 29.5% compared to last year, while investment recovered by 17.8% compared to the second quarter of 2020. In total, domestic consumption in Spain increased by 20.8% year-on-year.

In contrast, the foreign trade continued to have a negative impact on GDP. Exports grew by 34.1% while imports grew by 36.8%, so the deficit of the Spanish economy with the rest of the world remained.

It should be noted, however, that these variations are due to the fact that the second quarter of 2020 saw the tightest lockdowns not only in Spain but throughout the world, especially in the strongest economies such as the rest of the European Union, China and the United States. Therefore, there is what economists call the base effect: the fall in activity recorded then explains the strong growth recorded a year later, when the economy has partially recovered.