MADRID: Spain’s job-wrecking recession was deeper than first announced in 2012, revised figures showed yesterday.
The Spanish economy shrank 1.6 percent in 2012 last year rather than the 1.4 percent contraction first posted, the National Statistics Institute said.
Spain’s economy, the eurozone’s fourth largest, also hit the brakes harder than first thought in 2011 when it grew by a meagre 0.1 percent, not the 0.4 percent growth earlier reported, the updated figures showed.
The revised figures change little for the Spanish economic outlook but they serve as a reminder of the depth of a two-year downturn that sent unemployment soaring to towering new highs.
Spain is still struggling to overcome the aftermath of a decade-long property bubble that imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and sending debt levels soaring.
Official data show the unemployment rate hit 26.26 percent in the second quarter of this year, slightly below the record 27.16 percent posted in the first quarter.
France’s Total to buy Chevron’s Egypt retail network
CAIRO: French oil major Total said it had agreed to buy the Egyptian retail network of US energy company Chevron, in a move it said would create its biggest marketing and services subsidiary outside Europe.
Total said the Chevron network has annual sales of more than 1.4 million tonnes and includes 66 service stations, two oil depots and the aviation fuel operations at Cairo and Marsa Alam airports.
It bought the assets jointly with Egyptian partners Beltone Capital and Beltone Private Equity (BPE) Energy.
The purchase is subject to approval by the relevant authorities, Total said in a statement. It did not give a value for the deal.
Chevron had been seeking to sell its Egyptian and Pakistani downstream assets to raise $300m for the second-largest US oil company, sources said in May.
Total already agreed in May to buy the Egyptian retail assets of Royal Dutch Shell.
Hungary cuts base interest rate to record low of 3.80 percent
BUDAPEST: Hungary’s central bank (MNB) cut its main interest rate yesetrday to a record low level of 3.8 percent from 4.0 percent after 12 monthly quarter-point cuts in a row. As in previous months, the MNB said weak demand in the Hungarian economy and low inflation justified the continuation of an easing policy geared to kindle a recent return to growth, albeit slight, after a year-long recession.
Hungary exited recession in the first quarter with growth of 0.6 percent —f ollowed by 0.1 percent growth in the second — while inflation has eased from being one of the highest in the EU to an almost four-decade low of 1.8 percent in June.
Agencies
