If you don’t know this Spanish word, it means, “bad,” or “the pits.” And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the only way to describe the Bank of Spain forecast for 2013.

The said banking institution considers that unemployment will rise to 27.1% and that the GNP will fall by 1.5%, which, you might suspect, is not what the Government has been forecasting. The Bank of Spain, by the way, publishes this kind of report (economic projections) once a year.

On a positive note, the Bank of Spain considers that by the last quarter things will ease off, followed by a timid growth of 0.6% for 2014, but as they made the same prediction for 2012, with recovery beginning at the start of 2013, nobody is holding their breath.

The really depressing point is that despite the active workforce reducing, owing to the aging of the population, the unemployment figure, which is already unsustainable, will increase to 27.1% – at the end of 2012 it reached 26.2%.

As for 2014 itself, the Bank of Spain considers it inevitable that the tax pressure will be maintained; i.e., the personal tax rate and indirect taxes will not be reduced to their previous level, as promised.

Cheer up – you could have been an expat in Cyprus, after all.

(News: Spain)