Spanish GDP grows 5.5% in 2022 after advancing just 0.2% in the fourth quarter

The Spanish economy grew by 5.5% in 2022 after recording a quarterly rise of 0.2% in the last quarter of the year, the same percentage as in the previous quarter, according to advance National Accounts data published today by the Institute National Statistics (INE).

The advanced figures for the year as a whole, for the moment, are positive and even exceed the Government's growth forecast for that year by 1.1 points (4.4%) and is above the projections of some organizations such as the IMF ( 5.2%), the Funcas panel (5%) and the Bank of Spain (4.6%).

However, the data from the last quarter outlines a much bleaker economic picture. Household consumption fell by 1.8% in the last three months of the year, after growing by 1.8% in the previous quarter. Investment -gross capital formation- plummeted 3.8%, after -0.6% in the previous period. In fact, in these months of the few sections that grew was that of Public Administration spending, which increased by 1.9%

In total, national demand fell by 0.9%, while the foreign sector did not perform positively either: imports (-4.2%) and exports (-1.1%).

On the supply side, the only sector that registered a drop was construction (-0.3%). The rest of the activities had rises, although some were very modest: industry (0.1%), services (0.3%) and agriculture (4.3%).

In the interannual rate, GDP grew by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, which is 2.1 points less than in the previous quarter (4.8%), mainly due to a lower contribution from domestic demand.

Specifically, the contribution of national demand to year-on-year GDP growth was 0.6 points, 2 points less than in the third quarter of 2022, while external demand contributed 2.1 points, one tenth less.

Despite the slowdown seen in the second half of the year and, above all, in the last quarter, the Spanish economy chained its second consecutive annual growth in 2022 after the 5.5% increase it registered in 2021. That year It meant a return to positive rates after the historic drop in GDP of 11.3% caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Economy highlighted today that the growth of 5.5% in 2022 has been achieved "in an international context of great uncertainty", marked by the consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine, which shows the "great solidity and resilience" of the Spanish economy.

National demand contributed 2.8 points to GDP growth in 2022, a figure 2.4 points lower than that of 2021, while external demand contributed 2.6 points, 2.3 points above the previous year, "thanks to the dynamism of exports", according to Economía.

In the case of domestic demand, the Ministry highlights that "it has withstood the impact of inflation and rising costs well", with growth in private consumption and investment of more than 4%.

At current prices, GDP for 2022 stood at 1,328,922 million euros, 10.1% more than in 2021. However, despite the progress of the last two years, Spanish GDP has not yet managed to recover the level prior to the pandemic.

In any case, the INE explains that for various reasons related to the availability calendar of some of the sources used in the last quarter of the year, the volume of information advanced in the data preview this Friday has been less than on previous occasions. .

This fact, he specifies, together with the difficulty that a change in the situation such as the Covid crisis has caused for statistical measurement, "makes it foreseeable that future revisions of the results published today may be of a greater magnitude than usual". .

The INE advance data is prepared with the information available up to November in most cases, although it has also included estimates of indicators for the month of December based on administrative data and other additional sources.