New blow to the myth that the independence process has ruined the Catalan economy. Catalonia's GDP has grown 0.8% during the first quarter of 2018, the same as the previous three months, according to the initial estimate from Idescat (Institute of Statistics of Catalonia) and the Catalan Economy Department. This is higher growth than that seen by Spain (0.7%) or the Eurozone average (0.4%).
Year-on-year, in other words, compared to total GDP at the end of the first quarter of 2017, Catalonia's GDP has grown 3.3%, more than Spain (2.9%) or the Eurozone (2.5%).
According to the report, the service sector has been one of the main driving forces behind this growth. On the other hand, some slow down has been seen in industry, which in the last quarter of 2017 had its strongest growth of the year. Construction remains stable at a particularly high level and the agriculture and fishing sectors appear to be heading to less negative results than in previous quarters.
Data source: Idescat
Industry and construction, on track
The industrial sector has grown 5.1% interannually, lower than the rate obtained last quarter (6.4%, the highest of 2017), but it remains above the average for the whole of 2017 (4.9%).
These results continue the positive trend the sector has seen in previous financial years. Growth is industrial production is fairly widespread, although standing out are the subsectors of textiles, tailoring, leather and footwear and metallurgy. As in the previous four years, the growth of the industry sector remains higher in Catalonia than the Eurozone as a whole.
As for the construction sector, growth is 6.4%, the same as the previous quarter, the highest levels it has reached since 2006. Good performance by the residential subsector, in particular housing, joins the improvements in public works, with a notable growth in public contracts put out to tender.
Accelerating service sector
The service sector has accelerated its interannual growth this first quarter of 2018 to 2.7%. For the first two months of the year, metrics show especially positive results in revenue for administrative activities, professional, scientific and technical activities and IT and communications.
Tourism recovering
As for tourism, the available statistics for the first three months of the show a recovery the influx of tourists from abroad (3.4% average growth) after the negative results in the last months of 2017. Especially remarkable is the increase in tourist spending, which has reached interannual growth of 10.4%.