Spain Business
Spain Business Brief - Wednesday April 23 2008
By h.b.
Apr 23, 2008 - 1:05 PM

A combination of an early date and the financial crisis has led to poor figures for the Spanish tourist industry over Easter this year.
The number of foreign tourists was 14% down, while national travellers were 8% down. March ended with 19.18 million overnight stays according to the numbers published today by the INE, National Statistics Institute. The Canaries topped the list of destinations for foreign visitors with 38% of the total, followed by Andalucía, Cataluña and Valencia.

The state budget surplus in Spain has fallen by 50% because of the real estate crisis. The Ministry for the Economy has said that there was a 51% fall in the first quarter of the year compared to last not helped by a fall in income from VAT. The surplus at the end of the first quarter was 3.276 billion €, or 0.29% of the GDP.

The Orizonia corporation has presented an offer for the purchase of Halcon Viajes and Air Europa, owned by the Globalia group. They confirmed that they had received the offer which they added was not the only one. Orizonia is the owner of the risk capital companies Cartyle and Vista Capital. Globalia say that they have not put the firm up for sale nor have they started to look for a possible buyer. Diario Expansión says the offer could be more than 1 billion €.
There has been recent consolidation in the travel sector – the merger of Vueling and Clickair is on the cards, and the EU has given the green light to Telefónica to take control of the internet travel portal Rumbo.

Banco Popular has announced profits for the first quarter of the year up 12% compared to last year at 322 million €.
The amount of bad debts faced by the bank has increased to 0.98% compared to 0.73% a year ago, while the credits granted to clients grew by 11.9% of the year.
When special transactions were removed from the numbers, underlining profit was up 16.4%.

The Financial Times reports today that Telefónica may be interested in purchasing the Dutch company KPM, and has particular interest in their mobile phone division E-Plus. Observers say it would be a new strategic move for the Spanish company.

The Euro continues to trade above 1.6 dollars for the first time ever. The continued financial crisis in the United States, and the decision of the European Central Bank not to reduce interest rates as a way of fighting inflation, has led to the stronger currency, and no change in policy is expected in the short term.