Spain's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased by 5.5% in 2022, the same figure as in 2021, after posting a quarterly increase of 0.2% from October to December, according to the advance National Accounts data published on Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
Thus, the Spanish economy has had two years of year-on-year growth of 5.5%. In 2021, the national GDP returned to positive rates after registering a fall of 11.3% caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020.
The GDP growth of 5.5% recorded in 2022 exceeds the government's growth forecast for that year (4.4%) by 1.1 points and is above the projections of some organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (5.2%), the Funcas panel (5%) and the Bank of Spain (4.6%).
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, led by Nadia Calviño, has pointed out that the growth has been achieved "in an international context of great uncertainty". Calviño had already warned that the executive's forecast for 2022 was going to fall short.
Domestic demand contributed 2.8 points to GDP growth in 2022, while external demand contributed 2.6 points, thanks to the dynamism of exports. In the case of domestic demand, the Ministry highlights that "it has withstood the impact of inflation and rising costs well", with private consumption and investment growing by more than 4%.
At current prices, GDP in 2022 stood at €1,328,922 million, 10.1% more than in 2021. "Spain has practically recovered the level of GDP prior to the pandemic," said the economics department. Employment, in terms of hours worked, recorded a quarter-on-quarter fall of 0.1%. For its part, the unit labour cost has increased by 3.2%.
The INE warns that, for various reasons related to the availability calendar of some of the sources used in the last quarter of the year, the volume of information provided in Friday's advance data has been less than on previous occasions.