Spanish Prime Minister Believes Economy Has Turned Corner

More than half its young people are unemployed, a double-dip recession has left the economy 7% smaller than it was five years ago, and debt has soared to nearly 100% of GDP. But Spain’s prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, believes his country has turned the corner and can hope for better things in 2014, following its worst economic crisis since the Franco era.

In an interview with the Guardian and partner newspapers from Spain, Italy, France and Germany, Rajoy said the incipient turnaround proved that his austerity efforts “have made sense”.

“Last year, the debate was over when Spain would get a bailout, and this year the debate is over when Spain will recover,” Rajoy said. He based his optimism on recent unemployment figures which showed that the number of jobseekers had fallen in November for the first time, following positive signs in October.

“Since June 2007, the difference in the unemployment numbers for the corresponding month of the year before has been getting worse and worse and worse. There was a moment, in 2009, when comparing January 2009 and January 2008, one million extra people had registered as unemployed,” he said.

via theguardian.com

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza