Dimitris Kouimtsidis
THE Bank of Spain has estimated that the economy will shrink by up to 13% this year.
In a document released today, the National Bank claims the economy has shrunk by 4.7% already from the period of January to March.
They predict that for the year as a whole, the best case scenario would be a drop of 6.6% but that the worst case scenario could see figures as high as 13.6%.
That means that there won’t be the perfect rebound – called recovery in a V shape – as many people had predicted.
It appears that despite original predictions where it was thought that the economy would recover to the state it was before the pandemic, it is now thought that the scars the crisis will leave in the form of debt and unemployment will be very deep.
Unemployment is predicted to skyrocket between 18.3% and 21.7%, without including the workers that have been put on ERTE schemes.
The bank led by Governor Pablo Hernandez de Cos, recognises that there is great uncertainty and admits that circumstances may cause the numbers to change.
Included in the document the bank released today, they also released statistics about companies nationwide, with 80% of them saying they’ve experienced a reduction in business, 10% say it’s the same as before and only 10% say they’re experiencing more business.
