Spain Business Brief - Wednesday March 18 2009

Spain Business Brief - Wednesday March 18 2009
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By h.b. - Mar 18, 2009 - 1:38 PM
Spain trying to attract money from financial havens

Barajas Airport - Wikipedia.es

The Spanish Government has announced that it has prepared, via a Royal Decree, a method to invest in public debt in Spain bringing in the money from financial havens which will grant total impunity to the owners of the cash.
In addition such money will not be subject to tax, and the Royal Decree also cancels the obligation to declare the identity of the owner if non-resident, its country of precedence, and the amount involved.
Those to suffer under the new deal will be Spaniards, and residents in Spain, who will have to pay 18% tax which will be retained if they are individuals, and 30% if they are companies. Residents of other countries will have to meet their corresponding income tax requirements also.
The measure nevertheless shows the Spanish Government’s current need for cash to finance the increasing public debt which is a consequence of the economic crisis.

A tax break cancelled in Spain ten years ago is coming back with a deduction being allowed for the payment of rent. The new state deduction will be compatible with any similar one established at a regional level already applied in some areas of the country.
Under the change it means a resident of Madrid can deduct more than 1,700 € over the year, by adding the regional and state amounts.

There has been a record fall in employment in shops in Spain caused by the collapse in sales.
Latest data shows that the small shopkeeper has seen sales fall by an average 6.2%, while the large superstores have seen a slight increase in business, but not enough for them to generate any new jobs.
Sales are down across the country, with Madrid, La Rioja and the Balearics hardest hit according to the data from the INE, National Statistics Institute.

The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet has repeated his opinion that the recovery will come next year, describing this as a ‘very difficult’ year.
He said that the recovery would depend on the reestablishment of confidence, but now we were still in that period of uncertainty.

Barajas Airport in Madrid has fallen out of the top ten list for the most busiest in the world.
Passenger numbers were down 2.4% at 50.8 million last year, taking Madrid out of the list to be replaced by Denver. Heathrow remained third, behind Atlanta and Chicago.

The Madrid courts have today backed the reform of the statutes of the Caja Madrid savings bank, as proposed by the regional government led by Esperanza Aguirre, and hence thrown out the appeal made to it by the Mayor of the capital, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón. It came despite an appeal from the bank itself calling for a halt to the reform of its statutes which they said would cause damage.

Lorry sales were 73% down in February this year compared to last and Spanish manufactures are now calling for the VIVE discount package for private vehicles be extended into the heavy goods market.

Another Spanish constructor has applied for bankruptcy protection. Grupo DHO is reported to be in debt to the tune of 700 million €.

Cataluña has followed the example in Andalucía and has announced it is also going to oblige electricity companies to re-bill all their customers in the introduction of monthly billing.

Meanwhile the National Energy Commission, CNE, has recommended that the electricity companies ‘immediately return’ any excess charge they have collected because of the estimated bills issued at the start of this year. The CNE says that all clients should be refunded, even if no official complaint was made. They have also issued new guidelines to the power companies as to how to estimate the monthly bills, and such estimations should not include and excess use charges.

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