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The other investment component, that linked to construction, has undergone a most significant adjustment in the past decade. This means that, in 2018, following several years 4/7  of recovery, this GDP component was still at around 16% of its pre-crisis level. The downscaling of investment in housing entailed a decline in its weight in GDP to levels close to 5% in 2018, in line with Spain’s peers, compared with 12% pre-crisis. The reduction in housing investment activity came about in parallel with a decline in house prices which, despite the growth observed in recent years, remain in real terms some 32% below the nationwide levels observed in 2007, albeit with some cross-regional dispersion. All these developments better position this sector to support economic growth, as indeed has been the case in 2018. The weight of non-residential construction, for its part, has also diminished considerably, largely reflecting the impact of the reduction in public-sector investment spending. Beyond these improvements, as I stated in my introduction the Spanish economy remains prone to certain vulnerabilities and faces significant challenges, which I shall now set out. First, despite the notable above-mentioned reduction in private debt in recent years, on the latest available data for 2018 Q3 the negative net International Investment Position (IIP) of the Spanish economy stood at 81% of GDP, and that of gross external debt at 168% of GDP, levels that are high in relation to other advanced economies and which mark a factor of vulnerability for the economy as a whole.