Spain-ting by numbers
Business correspondent Sarah Smith gives a numerical guide to just how bad the Euro-crisis looks in Spain.
9.8 per cent
Spanish retail sales have slumped by 9.8 per cent compared to last year. That shows just how hard the recession is hitting consumer spending and the damage being done to the Spanish economy.
9 year low
The Spanish share index – Ibex – closed at a nine-year low yesterday and is falling today. All because of a string of bad numbers affecting the Spanish economy.
20 per cent
Barclay’s Capital says Spain’s disastrous house price crash is only halfway through and has another 20 per cent to fall. That will mean banks taking far more losses on bad loans that they have been prepared to contemplate so far. And inevitably means they will need to ask for some kind of help from the govt. A govt that insists it won’t let any bank fail but frankly can’t afford to bail out any more banks.
270bn euros
Bad property loans could eventually total 270bn euros according to an estimate by The Centre for European Policy Studies
3.3bn euros
That’s how much money Spain’s fourth largest bank, Bankia, lost last year. Late last night they restated their 2011 results and admitted to the loss. They had previously said they expected to make a profit of 41m euros.
23.5bn euros
That’s how much the Spanish govt will have to inject into Bankia to stop it from collapsing. The Spanish PM has stated that he wont let any bank fall because then the entire country would fall. But….
5.3bn euros
Is all the money Spain has left in its Frob – the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring. There isn’t nearly enough money to bailout Bankia, let alone all the other banks that will soon need help.
6.4 per cent
That’s what it is currently costing the Spanish government to borrow money. That’s a punishing rate of interest that makes it too expensive to borrow the 18bn euros they need to give to Bankia. It’s perilously close to the 7 per cent interest rates that forced Ireland, Greece and Portugal to seek an EU bailout.
??bn euros
Spain insists it won’t need a bailout from the EU and the IMF. But those reassurances ring less true every day. We just don’t know when they will have to ask for help – or how big the final bill will be.
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