IMF Lagarde Cools Down End of Recession Optimism in Spain

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has poured cold water on claims from the Spanish government that the recession is over and the country is on the road to recovery.

Speaking at the Global Forum on Spain in Bilbao she said: “Thanks to the formidable actions over the past five years, Europe – and Spain –are now turning the corner. Yet the task is far from finished. Growth remains too low and unemployment too high for us to declare victory on the crisis.”

The scars of the crisis run deep and will take years to heal, Lagarde said. “There is no doubt that the reforms that I have outlined for Europe and for Spain will take several years of determined efforts by both government and society.” The good news, she said, is that Spanish exports have risen faster than Germany’s.

Insisting that the “strong reform momentum must be maintained”, she called for a continued shakeup of the labour market, and said reforms “should not benefit those in work but those without it”.

via The Guardian

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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