Spain's grows by 0.1% in Q3

The Spanish economy grew by 0.1 percent from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2013, according to advanced data provided by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) on Wednesday. The Bank of Spain had already advanced this data last week and the Spanish government had said several times that Spain would grow in the second half of the year. The INE has confirmed that Spain left recession behind in the third quarter of this year although final figures will be published on November 28 when the INE will also provide more detailed information on the situation of the Spanish economy. Spain's gross domestic product (GDP) contracted for the first time in the second quarter of 2011, when it fell by 0.1 percent. It contracted by 0.3 percent in the third quarter of 2011 and the economy fell into recession since then, accumulating nine consecutive quarters of contractions. However, despite the slight growth registered on a quarterly basis, in annual terms Spanish GDP contracted by 1.2 percent compared to the 1.6 percent contraction registered in the second quarter of 2013 when compared with the same period of 2012. The INE attributed this difference to the low domestic demand of Spain which was compensated by a positive external demand. The Bank of Spain had reported last week that foreign demand had risen by 0.4 percent in the third quarter, while imports decreased by 0.7 percent. It also said that domestic demand had fell by 0.3 percent pointing out that private consumption had increased by 0.1 percent for the first time in a year and a half. The government expects the Spanish economy to grow by 0.7 percent in 2014 from the previous predicted 0.5 percent but warned in several occasions that the crisis had not finished yet.