IMF publish 2011 forecast for Spain

 

Earlier today the IMF (International Monetary Fund) released data illustrating the growth of the Spanish economy, which are significantly lower than the estimates of the Spanish government.

The IMF's report predicts that Spain will see a growth of 0.6 % during the course of this year followed by an improvement of 1.5 % next year.

This essentially places Spain below the average among other cuntries in the Eurozone, where the IMF expects the economies to grow by 1.5 % over 2011 and 1.7 % in 2012.

These statistics were published in the biannual IMF World Economic Outlook report and fall short of forecasts made by the Spanish government which has predicted economic growth of 1.3 % for this year and 2.5 % for next.

The IMF's predictions for Spain bear closer ressemblance to those published by Spanish bank CatalunyaCaixa, whose 6 monthly report published on Monday predicts an growth of 0.7 % in Spain's economy throughout 2011.

CatalunyaCaixa expects the first six months of the year to see a growth of 0.4 % - increasing to 1 % in the last half of the year. The IMF expect that the improvement in the economy will be reflected by the creation of around 80,000 new jobs in a country where over four million people are currently out of work.