Spain Business
Spain Business Brief - Thursday April 10 2008
By h.b.
Apr 10, 2008 - 1:13 PM

The pessimistic predictions of the International Monetary Fund about the future economic slowdown have been criticised by some of the Governments affected, from Washington to Paris and Lisbon to Madrid.
The IMF cut the forecast for the growth of the Spanish economy this year to 1.8%, well below the Spanish government’s forecast of 3.1%.
PSOE Socialist party Organisation Secretary, José Blanco, called for caution. ‘We have to be objective’, he said. ‘The IMF is a prestigious organisation, but they have been mistaken in their forecasts for the economic growth of Spain for the past four years when they forecast numbers lower than reality. It remains to be seen if they are mistaken again or not’, he said.
Despite his comments about the numbers, Blanco also noted that the IMF report did name Spain as the country which will grow the most in European Union, and said that the Spanish financial system was described as ‘offering more guarantees than anyone’, going as far as to say Spain could be a refuge for investors.
Meanwhile the Euro and petrol prices rallied to new highs today ahead of the interest rate decision from the European Central Bank, expected to leave rates unchanged.

The Spanish equivalent of the Monopolies commission has opened an investigation into the Sogecable and Mediapro companies who have been fighting each other over the television broadcast rights to football in Spain all season. Other smaller media companies are also implicated as are 38 football clubs from the first and second divisions in the investigation.

A judge has ordered the two top executives in the Caja de Alcoy Savings Bank to prison for five years and ordered them to pay fines of more than 5.2 million €. They were found guilty of fraud which led to the bankruptcy of the savings bank, which affected more than 1,500 savers.

Iberia airlines say they want to ‘change the image’ of the Spanish marketplace in the air with the purchase of Spanair. Chairman Fernando Conthe has said that the sector needs to undergo a ‘fundamental and deep’ process of restructuring to avoid that the domestic carriers which operate in Spain do so at a loss. It comes at a time that Clickair and Vueling have announced plans to merger.

And finally, back to the IMF…
Latest numbers for 2007 show that the GDP per inhabitant in Italy finally closed ahead of Spain, according to the IMF. It’s of interest as it contradicts the data from the European Commission, referring to 2006, which placed Spain above Italy much to the disgust of the Italian Prime Minster as the time, Romano Prodi.