STORY: Technical recession in Eurozone "not something to worry about": Spanish economist
DATELINE: June 17, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:47
LOCATION: Madrid
CATEGORY: TECHNOLOGY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of Sergi Basco, an associate professor of economics at Barcelona University
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish): SERGI BASCO, Associate professor of economics at Barcelona University

STORYLINE:

The report by Eurostat last week that the Eurozone entered a technical recession at the start of 2023 after the economy shrank by 0.1 percent for a second consecutive quarter is "not something we have to worry about," Sergi Basco, an associate professor of economics at Barcelona University, told Xinhua in an interview on Friday.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish): SERGI BASCO, Associate professor of economics at Barcelona University
"The fall in GDP is what the European Central Bank (ECB) wants and it's not something we have to worry about. This is what always happens: when interest rates are high, the economy slows, and that's where we are right now.
There's a clear trend in that the Eurozone's GDP has been going down in recent quarters, and in part, that's what the ECB wants.
The ECB has just raised interest rates. When they explain why, they would say it's because of inflation, and they're not really concerned about GDP, because they just want inflation to be as low as possible, which means that, in part, this is due to higher interest rates.
GDP figures get revised and in a year's time, we could find out that the economy entered 'recession' last month, which kind of makes these figures symbolic and so we shouldn't attach too much importance to them, because they are not determining.
Spain is an exception in the panorama of the Eurozone because the forecasts for Spain are more positive thanks to tourism, which is very important for Spain. The expectation is that the summer will be really good.
To sum up, things might get improved in the Eurozone. The year will not end in recession but there will be no spectacular economic growth, perhaps one percent growth at the most."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Madrid.
(XHTV)