PwC experts expect the Spanish economy to grow 1.6% this year

The Spanish economy will grow 1.6% in 2020 and 1.5% in 2021, according to the PwC Economic Consensus, which, since 1999, the consultant has prepared based on the opinion of a panel of more than 400 experts, Spanish managers and businessmen.

However, these estimates do not include the possible impact that the current coronavirus crisis could have on the economy, since the reception of responses was closed on Thursday, February 20.

Thus, without taking this impact into account, the panel of experts considers that the economic activity in Spain continues with its deceleration process, and increases the percentage of experts that qualifies as "regulating" the current moment of the economy up to 68%. Spanish.

They also grow up to 37% who think that the situation will be the same within a year, while 54% say it will get worse.

Asked about the estimates of the increase in GDP, the average of the responses of the respondents points to a growth of 1.6% by 2020 and 1.5% by 2021, which coincide with the winter forecasts of the European Commission and with those of the Government itself.

A majority of experts, 59%, qualify as regulating the economic and financial situation of families and 77% expect it to remain the same in the next three months.

On the contrary, it slightly improves the perception of experts on the evolution of consumption with respect to the previous quarter, since those who think it will remain stable have risen to 64%.

However, experts are more pessimistic about housing demand that, for 55%, will continue to shrink.

In terms of job creation, 62% of respondents estimate that their pace will fall in the next six months, and over the international situation, 61% consider their situation to be regular, while 54% believe that will remain unchanged until December 2020, and 31% that will get worse.

The opinions reflect the good prospects for the US economy, the situation of weakness in the European Union and Japan, as well as a worsening of China's growth expectations.

About China, 47% of experts expect their economic situation to be worse in December 2020, 40% to remain the same and only 13% to improve.

In this edition, the report also includes a monograph dedicated to aging in Spain, whose main conclusion is that experts are mainly committed to active retirement as a figure to prolong working life, take advantage of senior talent and help the sustainability of pensions.

Regarding pensions, 51% of respondents are committed to adapting the retirement age to life expectancy to be able to significantly contain pension spending.

The majority - 59% - points out that the improvement in the efficiency of public spending would free up important resources to finance pensions and 48% consider that the problem of pensions is, fundamentally, that there are not enough births -or immigration-, to generate the necessary contributions to pay future pensions.

In addition, there is a lot of skepticism among experts that by lowering the unemployment rate to 5% or minimizing the economy submerged in our country -7% of GDP-, sufficient resources can be generated to finance pensions.