Well, don’t let the headline estimate fool you. Spain’s services sector increased solidly last month owing to a further rise in new business received by
\ncompanies. However, new order growth softened to its lowest level in
\nnine months as the latest Middle East developments start to give rise to uncertainty. Of note, new export sales declined again, whilst confidence in the outlook
\nwas the lowest since September 2023.<\/p>\n
Besides that, higher energy prices are also starting to be a factor as overall
\noperating expenses rose at a rate not seen since April 2023. That comes as input price inflation surges and is going to become more and more of a problem in the months ahead.<\/p>\n
HCOB notes that:<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain\u2019s service sector expanded at a solid rate in March,
\nwith growth picking up on February\u2019s low. However,
\ndespite this improvement, when combined with a
\ndownturn in manufacturing output in March, Spain\u2019s
\neconomy has experienced a weaker growth profile overall
\nin the first quarter of 2026. Expect therefore official data
\non GDP for early 2026 to show a slower rate of expansion
\nthan the 0.8% quarterly gain reported for the fourth
\nquarter of 2025.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHow growth will develop in the coming months will be
\nvery much dependent on the duration of the war in the
\nMiddle East. The conflict has already led to a huge degree
\nof business and consumer uncertainty, with panellists
\nnoting that services new business growth has softened,
\nand export business, already under strain before the start
\nof the war, has deteriorated sharply.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMoreover, services firms are seeing big spikes in their
\nenergy and fuel bills, leading to the strongest increase
\nin overall input costs for nearly three years. With output
\ncharges also rising markedly, firms are understandably
\nworried about the impact that high prices will have on
\nspending in the near-term \u2013 and therefore their business
\nperformance over the coming months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, don’t let the headline estimate fool you. Spain’s services sector increased solidly last month owing to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-588332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}