Catalan economy posts 3.3% growth in third quarter of 2016
In annual terms, the Catalan economy grew by 3.3% in the third quarter of 2016 according to official data released this week by the Catalan Ministry for Economy and Tax Office and the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat). This increase is mainly thanks to the boost provided by the services sector, which saw annual growth of 3%, and the acceleration of the industrial sector, whose growth stood at 4.9%, the highest for the last six years. The quarterly growth rate, however, stood at 0.7%, one tenth lower rise than the previous quarter, but four percentage points above the Eurozone average. According to the data, there is a slight slowdown in the expansion of the Catalan economy, as annual growth in the first and second quarter of this year were 3.7% and 3.5%, respectively.