SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, December 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Canary Islands is the autonomous community that will grow the most until 2025 with GDP increases of 3.9%, 3.4% and 3.9% in 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively, according to the latest report from Hispalink, the network of experts in which teams from up to 15 Spanish universities participate, including Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which sets the average increase in the country for this year at 2.4%.
For next year, for example, the islands’ economy will grow in all sectors, especially in services (3.6%) and industry (2.2%), followed by construction (1.8%) and agriculture (0.1%), although agriculture will contract by almost two points in 2025.
The growth interval reflects a regional disparity in regional economic performance in 2023, with more than two points of difference between the region that is expected to grow the most (Canary Islands) and the one that will do so at a lower intensity (Basque Country), with better forecasts for the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and the Community of Madrid, in comparative terms with the national growth of 2.4% in 2023, as a result of the weighted aggregation of regional GDP growth rates.
On the contrary, regions such as the Basque Country, Murcia, Cantabria, Navarra and Aragon would predictably present GDP growth rates that are less dynamic than the national GDP in 2023, although, in any case, growing above the estimate (0.7% ) that the IMF grants to the eurozone.
In 2023, Hispalink points out, it is foreseeable that the majority of the communities together with the Spanish economy as a whole will reach pre-pandemic GDP levels, leaving only the Canary Islands pending, which would achieve it in 2024.
Precisely, because they suffered more from the setback of 2020, and despite the dynamic growth rate of their economies, the Canary and Balearic archipelagos are recovering their previous economic activity more slowly.
For this reason, the report emphasizes that effective performance in the execution of European Next Generation funds is very important in order to strengthen the recovery and ensure that there is a near end to the war conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Considering the period 2022-2025, the five regions with the highest growth and higher than the national average will be the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community and Andalusia, which will together contribute more than 50% of the estimated national growth in said period (3, 2%).
Hispalink also proposes projecting fiscal consolidation policies in line with the new EU economic governance framework, which also conditions European economic policy and Europe’s leadership.
Thus, it states that Spain needs to strengthen the labor market and increase productivity to be able to firmly face the challenges related to fiscal consolidation, the per capita income gap with the EU and social inequalities, among others.
