Spain has been one of the weaker economies in Europe since the global financial crisis in 2008. While four consecutive quarters of economic growth have been recorded since the final period of 2010, the last quarter of 2011 slipped back into negative territory as world trade slowed and the impact of the Eurozone debt crisis hit confidence and domestic funding conditions. Moreover the IMF, which has one of the more pessimistic forecasts, sees real-terms GDP contracting by 1.8% in 2012 before the possibility of growing very marginally by around 0.1% in 2013.

Deep public spending cuts are being implemented along with a temporary increase in personal income tax as part of ongoing austerity measures. At the time of writing unemployment had reached its highest level in almost two decades, the government’s debt was downgraded by two notches by Standard and Poor’s to BBB+ (bringing it closer to junk status) and retail sales are still falling as the economic climate continues to hit consumer spending. There is talk of a further increase in VAT (possibly to 20% from the current level of 18%) in 2013 given the government’s comment that consumer taxes would have to increase following the recent debt downgrading.

This report series covers the 19 leading economies of Europe. In total these countries account for around 95% of all European retail sales, excluding Russia. The remaining ten countries are either too small (eg Luxembourg) or are not sufficiently well developed to warrant detailed coverage (eg Romania and Bulgaria). Many of the developing countries plus Russia and Turkey are covered in Mintel’s annual European Retail Handbook, as well as the Mintel report, Retailing in Emerging Markets – Europe, June 2011.

This data in its entirety is contained in the single copy 19-country report, which gives a full overview of electrical goods retailing in Europe. Single country reports are also available for the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.