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Spanish welcome growth spurt

madridSpain’s economy may be turning a corner after initial estimates suggest that there has been growth for five quarters in a row.

The country’s statistics office was the economy grew by 0.5% during the July to September quarter. This follows growth of 0.6% in the quarter before.

The housing market crash in 2007 brought Spain’s banking system to the edge, prompting emergency loans from the EU. Spain has struggled desperately since then. Despite the welcome growth figures, bank lending is low and unemployment has been stuck above 24%.

But the new data implies that Spain is outperforming the usual eurozone stars. German’s economy contracted 0.2% in the second quarter and France failed to have any growth in the first half of this year.

Analysts eagerly await the publication of eurozone GDP for the third quarter, which Eurostat will publish in mid-November.