Spain’s government has improved its financial forecasts, as official data showed registered unemployment fell for the fifth consecutive month in June.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said his government now predicts growth of 3.3% in 2015 and of 3% in 2016, both up from the previous forecast of 2.9%. These new forecasts are more optimistic than those from the Bank of Spain, which sees the economy expanding by 3.1% in 2015 and 2.7 % in 2016.
“We are growing because we are producing and exporting, unlike what happened before when we went into debt to buy what others produced,” he said in a speech at an economic forum last week.
Spain’s economy grew by 1.4% in 2014, a year after officially coming out of recession. It was its first full year of growth since the property bubble burst in 2008.
June was the fifth straight month where the number of registered unemployed in Spain fell, dropping by 94,277 to 4.12million. However, despite the good news, the International Labour Organisation expects Spain’s jobless level to remain above 20% until the end of the decade.
