The Balearic Islands continue to lead the recovery of the economy in Spain, with growth in the third quarter of 2022 of 13.7% compared to the same period a year ago. In addition, the year-on-year variation for the second quarter of 2022 has also been revised upwards, to 24.2%, when the previous estimate was 18.4%.

These results follow the growth trend set in the second quarter of this year, and also improve the growth forecast for 2022 as a whole to 13.3%, up from the 11.1% initially forecast. This is the main economic data for the third quarter, which has been presented by the Councillor for Economic Model, Tourism and Labour, Iago Negueruela.

Reaching pre-pandemic GDP

With the data from the third quarter and thanks to the good performance of the economy, the Government’s forecasts of exceeding the pre-pandemic GDP by the end of this year are maintained. In this line, the main economic indicators already present at the beginning of the fourth quarter a level higher or at least similar to that of 2019, which will allow the Balearic Islands to be one of the first territories in Spain to recover the pre-pandemic level.

Looking ahead to 2023, the Government maintains the growth forecast at 3.9% for the Balearic Islands, a figure that is almost four times the forecast expected for Spain as a whole that year (+1%) and is well above that of the European Union (+0.3%), driven by the main economic sector, tourism.

The councillor pointed out that with the consolidation of this growth, all the islands will show year-on-year variations in all the quarters of 2022 that are much higher than the Spanish average and the rest of the European Union.

By islands, the performance of Mallorca stands out, as it was the island that suffered most intensely from the COVID-19 crisis. Despite this, it shows the highest growth rates since the economic recovery, with 15.5% in the third quarter.

Menorca is the island that was least affected by the 2020 health crisis, maintains outstanding growth and is currently more than 5 percentage points above the data for the third quarter of 2019 according to the forecasts of the Directorate General of Economic Model.

Finally, the Pitiusas have recovered the ground lost with the pandemic quickly and in the third quarter of the year is already 6.4% above 2019.