Credit Management March 2024

COUNTRY FOCUS
(844,000), Alicante-Elche (793,000), Las Palmas
(640,000) and Zaragoza (639,000). There are another
18 with more than 200,000 residents and a further 28
with fewer than 200,000 residents.
Infrastructure
Spain appears to be well connected. 2018 data from
Invest in Spain claims that Spain's logistics are
among the most competitive and reliable in the
world. There are, it says, 50 airports (other sources
cite more) served by 672 airlines, most with direct
international connections; the largest network of
highways and roads in the EU – over 17,000 km, and
683,000 km if all roads are counted (worlddata.info);
15,000 km of high speed and conventional railway;
46 ports, including four major European ports that
handle more than 560m tons of goods and over
a million travellers a year; and 152 logistics parks
covering more than 58.7m square metres.
As for digital infrastructure, Invest in Spain
reckons that Spain has the highest fibre to the home
penetration rate in the EU and ultrafast broadband
covers 87 percent of the country, compared to 60
percent in Europe. Its chart places Spain third –
ahead of Sweden, Belarus, Romania and Portugal
but behind Latvia and Lithuania.
Economy
The UK Government has described Spain as: “the
fourth largest economy in the EU and currently one
of the fastest growing in the euro area. The economy
has historically been boosted by UK tourists (18m
visits in 2019 from the UK) and UK residents (over
409,000 residents registered in Spain as of June
2022), especially in coastal areas.”
The country was hit hard by COVID-19, with 2020
GDP falling 11.2 percent. However, the economy grew
by 6.4 percent in 2021 and 5.8 percent in 2022 (World
Bank), with the OECD projecting that growth will
have slowed to 2.1 percent in 2023 and 1.9 percent in
2024. Just as with other advanced economies recent
inflation has been high, peaking at 10.8 percent in
July 2022, but has since fallen back to 3.1 percent in
December 2023 (Trading Economics).
Current unemployment (using latest data to Q3
2023 from focus-economics.com) shows a rate of 11.8
percent. Despite it being much lower than the peak
of 26.94 percent in Q1 2013, it was lower still in Q2
2007 when it stood at 7.93 percent.
Spain’s 2023 GDP stood at $1.58tn (IMF data)
compared to the UK’s $3.3tn and the US’ $26.95tn.
Wind the clock back 30 years and the relative figures
were $529bn, $1.16tn and $6.86tn.
Business sectors
Spain, according to Invest in Spain, offers businesses
ten key sectors worthy of attention.
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / March 2024 / PAGE 26