Spain Business Brief - Thursday July 2 2009

Spain Business Brief - Thursday July 2 2009
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By h.b. - Jul 2, 2009 - 1:19 PM

Photo EFE

The fall in unemployment dominates the business news

Unemployment in Spain fell by 1.5% or 55,250 people in June, according to the official figures just released by the employment agency INEM.
It’s the second consecutive monthly fall and is in contrast to a rise of nearly 37,000 unemployed in June last year. It’s the largest fall seen in June for eight years.
Madrid was the only region of the country where unemployment did not fall last month, and Cataluña saw the largest number of people coming off the dole. Observers say that much of the fall is thanks to the start of the tourism season, as well as the Government’s Plan E stimulus plan which has seen investments in local Town Halls and the hotel industry.
There are now 3,564,889 people out of work, according to the Ministry for Employment, and over the past 12 months 1,174,465 have joined the lists of the unemployed.

Four out of every ten taxpayers in Spain this year told Hacienda that they earned less than 1,000 € a month. 7.2 million of the 18.7 million tax returns for 2008 show annual earnings of less than 12,000 €. 86% of these are simple wages paid by an employer, while the rest are made up by professionals and the self-employed.
At the other end of the scale only 10,580 people claimed an income of more than 600,000 €.

Consumer confidence increased in Spain in June for the fourth consecutive month, and is at its highest level since March 2008. Observers say that the improvement seen comes following an improved perception of current circumstances.
The index, compiled by the ICO Official Credit Institute, rose by 2.6 points over the month.

Telefónica is to take part in the auction for the British arm of Deutsche Telekom, according to the Financial Times. The report comes three days after Vodafone announced an interest for the arm which trades in the U.K. as T-Mobile UK. The Telefónica bid would ensure that its company O2 does not lose its leading position in the UK market.

The state Chinese petrol company, CNPC, wants to buy 75% of YPF, the part of the Repsol group which operates in Argentina. The South China Morning Post says an offer will be made later this week.

The Government has said that it is to reform the OCI, the Official Credit Institute, this month. The Prime Minister announced what he called ‘a convenient change’ in order to get more agility and capacity for the Institute to offer credits.

Ford has announced it is moving production of the Focus away from Spain to Germany. The new generation Focus, which is to be launched in 2011 will be built mainly at their plant at Saarlouis in Germany, while the Almissafes plant in Valencia will concentrate on the production of the C-MAX and a new 2 litre direct injection petrol engine EcoBoost.

And finally,
Demand for electricity was 6.4% down, over the first half of the year, compared to last, according to the power company association Unesa. It’s a sign of the effects of the recession, or perhaps consumers being more careful in these times of increased prices.

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