By Belén Carreño
(Reuters) – The Spanish economy recorded a faster-than-expected 2.9% annual growth in the second quarter, indicating it would outpace other big eurozone economies this year.
The economy grew 0.8% in the second quarter from the previous three months, also quicker than expected, preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute showed on Tuesday.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected gross domestic product to rise 0.5% from the previous quarter and 2.5% from the same quarter of 2023.
The Spanish government recently upgraded its growth forecast for 2024 to 2.4% from 2%.
The robust growth contrasted with a modest 0.3% growth in France during the second quarter, while Germany’s economy expanded a scant 0.2% in the first quarter from the previous quarter.
Exports continued to grow in the spring and domestic demand, consumption and investment all performed well. Compared with a year ago, industrial activity picked up the most, though all sectors were on an uptrend.
Employment data released a few days ago had already raised expectations for economic growth, with the unemployment rate at 11.27%, the lowest since the start of the 2008 recession.
The robust growth is not pushing the economy to overheat as inflation data in the 12 months to July has dropped sharply to 2.9%, 0.7 percentage points lower than a month earlier.
Electricity and food prices declines contributed to the inflation slowdown in July.
(Reporting by Belen Carreno and Maria Luiza Amaral, editing by Inti Landauro and Bernadette Baum)
