Catalan GDP grows by 3% from last year

The Catalan GDP continued to grow in the second quarter of the year, surpassing the previous one by 0.7%, and outperforming the same period in 2017 by 3.1%.

Although the economy’s growth remains strong, the latest figures show a slight decline from previous higher figures. Both figures fall 0.1% short of the records from the first quarter of the year. In the first quarter of the year, GDP grew by 0.8% from the last term in 2017, and 3.2% in comparison with the same period in the previous year.

The Catalan GDP growth from the first to the second quarter stayed ahead of that of Spain (0.6%) and the European Union (0.4%). It also surpassed Spain’s growth from last year (2.7%), as well as the EU figures (2.1%).

Internal demand remains the main driver for economic development, with families’ consumption falling from 2.8% to 2% in three months, and companies’ investment rising from 2.9% to 4.8%.

The production of Catalan industry went up from 1.5% to 5.3% in the second quarter, thus amounting to the largest part of the rise in investment.