Impulsa Balears yesterday held the i-meeting “Global conditioning factors and pendular movements: protagonists of the macroeconomic scenario”. According to its technical director, Antoni Riera, the Balearic Islands will ease its growth but, predictably, without going into negative territory. Moreover, he predicted growth for the region “above the Spanish average”, as the islands’ starting point is not as bad as expected.

The strength for the islands comes precisely from taking advantage of international flows during the last few months. The good tourist season has allowed companies on the islands to have a high level of liquidity for the coming months. Moderate optimism, therefore, to face the winter, with the exploitation of international tourist flows as a differential value.

Five simultaneous crises

The meeting analysed the current economic keys, where five crises are converging at the same time: the war in Ukraine, inflation, geopolitical pressure, the consequences of the pandemic and climate change. The rise in prices is the one that most affects Spain, where the impact of the crisis is not as accentuated as in other more industrialised economies, such as Germany and France.

Enric Fernández, chief economist at CaixaBank Research, stressed that “the big conditioning factor is inflation, which is very long-lasting and very unpredictable. It is very important for fiscal policy to help the most vulnerable groups, families and companies, as they are more exposed to inflationary pressures”.

At present, Fernández continued, “the relevant question is when inflation will return to normal levels and to what extent central banks will have to raise interest rates to achieve this”.