page_title: Economy of Spain
hierarchical_section_title: Economy of Spain
caption_attribution_description: English: Madrid, Spain. Cuatro Torres Business Area.
context_page_description: The economy of Spain is the world's thirteenth-largest by nominal GDP as well as one of the largest in the world by purchasing power parity. The country is a member of the European Union, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization. Spain has a capitalist mixed economy. The Spanish economy is the sixth-largest in Europe behind Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia as well as the fourth-largest in the eurozone based on nominal GDP statistics. In 2012, Spain was the twelfth-largest exporter in the world and the sixteenth-largest importer. Spain is listed 25th in the United Nations Human Development Index and 30th in GDP per capita by the World Bank, therefore it is classified as a high income economy and among the countries of very high human development. According to The Economist, Spain has the world's 10th highest quality of life.
  Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the Spanish economy plunged into recession, entering a cycle of negative macroeconomic performance. Compared to the EU's and US's average, the Spanish economy entered recession later, but it stayed there longer.
context_section_description: The economy of Spain is the world's thirteenth-largest by nominal GDP as well as one of the largest in the world by purchasing power parity. The country is a member of the European Union, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization. Spain has a capitalist mixed economy. The Spanish economy is the sixth-largest in Europe behind Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Russia as well as the fourth-largest in the eurozone based on nominal GDP statistics. In 2012, Spain was the twelfth-largest exporter in the world and the sixteenth-largest importer. Spain is listed 25th in the United Nations Human Development Index and 30th in GDP per capita by the World Bank, therefore it is classified as a high income economy and among the countries of very high human development. According to The Economist, Spain has the world's 10th highest quality of life.
  Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the Spanish economy plunged into recession, entering a cycle of negative macroeconomic performance. Compared to the EU's and US's average, the Spanish economy entered recession later (the economy was still growing by 2008), but it stayed there longer. The economic boom of the 2000s was reversed, leaving over a quarter of Spain's workforce unemployed by 2012. In aggregated terms, the Spanish GDP contracted by almost 9% during the 2009–2013 period. The economic situation started improving by 2013–2014. By then, the country managed to reverse the record trade deficit which had built up during the boom years, attaining a trade surplus in 2013 after three decades of running a trade deficit. The surplus kept strengthening during 2014 and 2015.
  In 2015, the Spanish GDP grew by 3.2%, a rate not seen since 2007, the last year before the world financial crisis struck. This growth rate was the highest among larger EU economies that year. In just two years (2014–2015), the Spanish economy recovered 85% of the GDP lost during the 2009–2013 recession which got some international analysts to refer to Spain's current recovery as "the showcase for structural reform efforts". Strong GDP growth was registered also in 2016, with the country growing twice as fast as the eurozone average. In this regard, the Spanish economy is forecast to remain the best-performing major economy in the eurozone also in 2017. Spain's unemployment rate fell substantially from 2013 to 2017, although the real unemployment rate is much lower as there is an estimation of millions of people working in the grey market, people who count as unemployed or inactive yet still perform jobs. Although estimates of the hidden economy vary, the real Spanish GDP may be around 20% bigger as it is estimated that the underground economy of Spain moves annually 190 billion Euros (US$224 billion). Among high income European countries, only Italy and Greece are estimated to have larger underground economies than Spain. Thus Spain may have higher purchasing power as well as a smaller gini coefficient than shown in official numbers. In 2012, the Spanish government officially requested a credit from the European Stability Mechanism to restructure its banking sector in the face of a financial crisis. The ESM approved up to €100 billion in assistance, although, in the end, Spain only drew €41.3 billion. The ESM programme for Spain ended with the full repayment of the credit drawn eighteen months later.
caption: Cuatro Torres Business Area in Madrid
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