Spain loses its fear to consume

Spanish households are beginning to show positive values in their propensity to buy for the first time in six years, placing this GfK indicator at 2 points.

According to the latest GfK study on EU consumer climate, although Spain had shown remarkable improvements in confidence in economic expectation, it had not so far raised its positive consumer mood. Moreover, both indicators have maintained different behaviors, coming to exist a great gap between them.

As factors that may have influenced this slight increase in positive mood are the inflation moderation and the favorable forecasts on the reduction of the unemployment rate, today at 17.2%. It is added to this the improvement in tourism and, therefore, of seasonal employment. However, “we have to be very aware on how the current situation in Cataluña can affect this one and other indicators”, GfK points out.

For various reasons, there is a optimism stagnation in economic expectation, which, this quarter, again stands at 25 points, unchanged from the previous one.

Finally, income expectation again improved slightly compared to the previous quarter, with a slight increase of 2 points, reaching this indicator 16 points (7 points more than the same quarter of 2016).

(Source: inforetail.com)