In light of the excellent results of the Business Confidence Indicator in its January survey, the Chamber of Commerce of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has revised upwards its economic growth forecast for 2022, from 7% to 9%.
A more positive estimate that is based on the growth recorded in business confidence for the first quarter of the year: the Archipelago breaks with expectations of decline and advances by 4.4%, leading the national ranking, only behind the Basque Country and significantly above the national average, whose confidence increased by 1.4%.
So much so that a third (31.4%) of the entire business fabric of the Canary Islands claimed to have improved their activity in the last quarter of the year compared to the previous one, while 54.6% were able to maintain the same results and only 14% claimed to have reduced their turnover.
These data, therefore, show a growth in business confidence never seen in the first quarter of the year since the harmonised ECI has been compiled. A significant increase which, moreover, is reflected in all sectors of activity, and which the president of the provincial Chamber, Santiago Sesé, valued.
“There is no doubt that the Canary Islands has closed a year 2022 that we can classify as positive, and the initial forecasts for 2023 also indicate that it will be a year of economic growth, but of less intensity due not only to geopolitical uncertainty or inflation, but also because of the effects that the rise in interest rates will have on the loss of purchasing power of families and on the financial costs of companies. Therefore, to counterbalance these situations, we at the Chamber believe that it is necessary to activate all avenues of investment, both private and public, in addition to exploring options for collaboration between the two, thereby generating greater dynamism in the Canary Islands economy this year,” he said.
However, he acknowledged that there are problems such as over-qualification, but also poor training, as more than 50% of those on the unemployment lists do not even have compulsory secondary education.
