Spain Business
Spain Business Brief - Tuesday October 7 2008
By h.b.
Oct 7, 2008 - 1:19 PM

The European Union is today proposing to guarantee savings up to a 100,000 € limit across the continent which would be welcomed in Spain where the Government wanted to work Europe-wide, and where the previous limit was just 20,000 €.
The money would be completely guaranteed in the case of any bank failing, but is still short of the 100% guarantee offered in some six European countries.
French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has said that member countries are ‘united against the crisis’.

New numbers from the Ministry for Industry for inflation in September show that lemons, sunflower oil and flour are the foodstuffs which have increased most in price. Lemons are up 48% on their price in September 2007.
At the other end of the scale, onions are the item to fall most in price over the year, down by 5%.
Advice from the government to eat more rabbit as it is good value has resulted in rabbit now rising in price more than lamb.

The Banesto bank has announced a 12% increase in profits over the first nine months of the year compared to last year at the same time. The numbers came in at 653 million €. The bad debt at the bank is now 1.17%, almost triple the amount, 0.43% seen a year ago, and the coverage for possible insolvencies has halved to 144%.

The number of travellers to use airplanes on domestic routes in Spain was down 9.7% in August this year compared to last, according to numbers just released by the National Statistics Institute INE at 3.9 million.
RENFE Spanish railways say that 31.4 million used the train in August, up 4% on last year, but with 23.7% growth seen on AVE high speed lines, although there are more lines than a year ago of course. More than two million boarded an AVE this August.

Meanwhile budget airline Vueling has announced it is to launch its own brand of mobile phone services as a virtual operator. Vueling will operate under Dutch company KPN which uses the Orange network.

The IBEX 35 fell initially this morning but later recovered despite the collapse seen on the market in London and elsewhere in Europe.