Spain's economy grew faster in second quarter than initially estimated

MADRID (Reuters) -Spain's turbo-charged economy outpaced its euro zone peers in the second quarter even more than originally estimated.

The country's gross domestic product expanded 0.8% in the April-June period against the previous three months, the National Statistics Institute (INE) said on Friday, a faster pace than the preliminary 0.7% estimate released in July.

On an annual basis, Spain's economic output expanded 3.1% in the second quarter, INE said, up from a preliminary estimate of 2.8%.

UNEMPLOYMENT AT LOWEST SINCE 2008

All the main economic sectors experienced strong growth, INE said, including manufacturing, construction, and the services sector - the latter of which represents more than half of the country's GDP, and was buoyed by a sustained tourism boom.

The economic growth coincided with a decline in the unemployment rate to 10.29% in the second quarter, the lowest level since early 2008.

Spain's strong economic activity contrasts with the broader euro zone, where GDP grew a mere 0.1% in the quarter, with Germany and Italy contracting 0.3% and 0.1% respectively, and France expanding 0.3%.

The strong performance backs the Spanish government's recent upgrade of its 2025 GDP forecast to 2.7%, Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo said in an emailed statement.

While Spain expects healthy growth this year, its European peers expect anemic growth rates.

INE also revised Spain's year-on-year GDP growth for the first quarter of 2025 to 3.2%, up from a previous 2.8%, but kept the quarter-on-quarter growth at 0.6%.

(Reporting by Joao Manuel Mauricio in Gdansk. Editing by Inti Landauro and Mark Potter)