Seville, (EFE).- The Andalusian economy slightly improves its evolution in 2023 thanks to the increase in trade and the good performance of the labor market, with a GDP growth forecast of 1.4% and an unemployment rate that will drop by a point up to 18%.
These are the macroeconomic projections of the XXXI Loyola Economic Outlook (LEO) Report presented today by the professor of Economics at Loyola University, Manuel Alejandro Cardenete, and the general secretary of the Andalusian Business Confederation (CEA), Luis Fernández-Palacios, which places inflation at the end of the year at 3.6%.
In Spain, GDP could grow by 1.5% in 2023, which represents an upward revision of half a percentage point compared to the projections of the previous report and is the same growth that is expected for 2024, while in Andalusia GDP will grow 1.4% in 2023 and 1.6% in 2024.
Cardenete has pointed out that “Andalusian growth becomes slightly lower than Spanish growth, as the growth of the last quarter of 2022 already marked, and this has not occurred since 2019”, although he has trusted that “it is not a trend and let’s stop converging with Spain”.
The highest export balance since 1995
According to the report, despite the global uncertainty that the pandemic and the geopolitical instability in Eastern Europe had generated, the evolution of the Andalusian economy seems to have undergone a change of course with respect to previous periods, mainly due to the increase in trade business and the good behavior of the labor market.
The Andalusian economy closed the export balance of 2022 with 42,958 million in sales, the highest record in its history since comparable data exists (1995), a figure that exceeds the last record of 34,552 million by more than 8,000 million, reached in 2021, thanks to sales growth of 24.3% year-on-year, higher than the national average (22.9%).
In job creation, according to Social Security data, the number of affiliations in December 2022 was 3,338,757, a figure that corresponds to an increase of 1.2% compared to December 2021, and closed with an increase of 3.5% employed due to the good performance of the Andalusian labor market in the last months of the year.
Unemployment of 16.9% in 2024
However, the forecasts for 2023 consider an employment growth of 0.8% and for 2024 it will increase to 1.4%. More optimistic are the forecasts for the unemployment rate, which continues its downward trend registered after the pandemic and is expected to stand at 18% in 2023, and at 16.9% in 2024.
The report confirms that the monetary policy measures of the European Central Bank seem to have the expected effect, with a moderation of inflation in the short and long term, and the estimates of the Loyola Economic Outlook indicate an annual closing of inflation in Andalusia of 3 .6% in 2023 and 2.5% in 2024.
It warns, however, that the high price of energy together with the direct consequences of climate change that affected the whole of Europe last summer, may continue to have negative effects on the accounts of companies in the sectors most directly involved, such as agriculture and livestock. . EFE