Spain Business Brief - Friday April 11 2008
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By h.b. - Apr 11, 2008 - 1:25 PM
Annual inflation in Spain jumps to 4.5%

The IPC annual inflation rate for March in Spain increased by 9 tenths of a point to reach 4.5%. It’s the worst number since July 1995 and comes mainly as a consequence of price rises in clothing and footwear, up 3.4% in the month. Increases were also seen over the month in foodstuffs and housing. Milk, bread and fruit saw an annual increase in price of more than 10%.
Underlying inflation, which does not include fresh food or power, also rose by 0.1% over the month according to the numbers released this morning by the National Statistics Institute, INE.
The Government has commented that it is not satisfied with the number which is up for the fifth consecutive month, but they say it will moderate in April.

Meanwhile the President of the Employers Organisation CEOE, Gerardo Díaz Ferrán, has said that he sees the economic measures announced by the Prime Minister in his investiture speech in Congress this week as being insufficient. He has predicted that this year will be ‘bad’ and next year will be ‘worse’.
Díaz Ferrán said that it was ‘absolutely indispensible for the subject to be debated in the first meeting planned with the Government, CEOE and the unions. He also thought that measures should have been taken in good times, and the Government was wrong in waiting until the crisis before acting.

The French owned Carrefour hypermarket chain says it is considering opening its stores overnight in Madrid. It follows the relaxation of the shopping hours in the Madrid region. Company Chairman in Spain, Rafael Arias-Salgado, described the liberalisation of the hours as positive. He also said that the company’s expansion plans remain in place for this year, and he saw no fall off in sales in foodstuffs.

Shares in Itínere fell on the stock market in Madrid by 26% yesterday after the company announced it would be offering shares for 32.2% of its capital at a price of between 4.14 and 5.10 €. The market was not impressed by the efforts of the company, a subsidiary of Sacyr Vallehermoso, to raise the funds for expansion of its motorway toll and transport services.

And finally,
Telefónica has upset consumer groups by announcing that it is to charge 58 cents a month on land lines which use call identification. The charge comes into effect in July and will only be applied to Telefónica clients who do not have ADSL services.

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