Six in ten companies feel very or somewhat optimistic about the development of their activities when asked about their forecasts for the whole of 2024 and, furthermore, almost 60% also expect significant growth in its exports and national sales as well as an increase in job creation (33.3%) by 2025.
This is reflected in the business climate study carried out by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Sigmados, which shows that optimism tends to increase as well as the size of the company, highlighting sectors such as construction, tourism, hotels and restaurants, among the most favorable.
On the other hand, companies in the agri-food sector are those which have downgraded their forecasts for this year by the highest percentage. Business optimism rests on recovery in domestic demand and in the opening of new international markets. However, companies are also expressing concerns about the impact on their future performance of rising labor costs and tax pressure.
In fact, and Compared to their current situation, 39.4% of companies highlight the increase in labor costs as the most important risk, followed by labor shortage (39%).
And despite the optimistic climate, 43.8% of respondents identify the socio-political situation in Spain as an important risk factor which could affect growth expectations.
In addition, 26.6% also highlight the evolution of energy and raw material prices as a factor that could have a negative impact on the evolution of the Spanish economy. The same percentage cite persistent inflation as another significant threat. The impact of international geopolitical tensions is also highlighted by 23.1% of those questioned.
The business climate study reflects notable optimism among Spanish companies. More than 57% predict a good year in 2025, which allows us to anticipate sustained growth in our economy next year.
However, we cannot ignore existing concerns about political uncertainty and inflation,” says José Luis Bonet, President of the Chamber of Spain, “it is essential that we work together to create an environment that promotes confidence and supports companies on their path to modernization. and transformation”.
Knowledge of “NextGen” funds
Furthermore, the survey reveals that the level of awareness of Next Generation EU recovery funds continues to increase. 60.6% of companies are aware of the funds, which represents an increase of 4 percentage points in one year, Companies with 50 to 99 employees and in the industrial, agri-food and other service sectors are the best informed of its existence. Likewise, 55.2% of businesses know how to access these funds, which represents an increase of more than 13 percentage points compared to the previous year, and 25.6% have already requested this assistance. Among those who requested it, 57.1% said the experience was satisfactory.
Although 49% of companies are skeptical about the ability of Next Generation funds to transform and modernize the economic fabric Spaniards, 18.4% have a lot or a fair amount of confidence in its transformative potential. Furthermore, 34.4% have little confidence in their abilities, while 14.5% do not have confidence that these funds will achieve their objective.
To prepare the study on the business climate in Spain, 2,003 surveys were carried out, distributed proportionally by autonomous community, sector of activity and number of employees.
