The Business Turnover index is a economic situation indicator that measures the short-term evolution of turnover, jointly, for the non-financial economic sectors: extractive and manufacturing industries; electrical energy and water; trade and non-financial services.
To obtain this indicator, the INE uses information from three surveys: the Industry Turnover Indices (ICN), the Service Sector Activity Indicators (IASS) and the Retail Trade Indices (ICM) and complements it with data provided by the Tax Agency.
This means that this index tells us how the business turnover is each month and reflects how businesses advance or regress and the expectations that entrepreneurs have.
That this index compared to December 2022 is almost 6% below what it tells us is that According to Spanish businessmen, things are much worse than in 2022. Unless of course, as the Government says, the businessmen are all liars and are willing to attack the Government by saying that things are going badly, when they are really going well.
The history of these surveys is very long. They have been carried out for many years, month by month, and it is difficult for the businessmen selected by the INE to carry out the survey to lie permanently. Furthermore, it is absurd, because they gain nothing by lying and everyone agreeing to issue a generalized lie is impossible.
We recently saw it published that the bankruptcy rate according to Eurostat in Spain had grown by 91% since Sánchez arrived and We now know that business turnover falls by 5.9%. If we link this with the report of the Ministry of Industry, where it is clear that the turnover of the Industrial Sector has fallen for 18 consecutive months or that the formalization of mortgages has been declining for 10 consecutive months and accumulates a reduction of 18.3% , it does not seem that the economy is going as well as they say from Moncloa.
All the economic indicators we have tell us that the Spanish economy is not doing well, Even the Tax Agency recognizes that VAT only grows by 0.8% until November when, according to the INE, nominal GDP grows by 8.5% and, therefore, collection should rise much more.
But let’s see where we are in the data published by the INE: The data is differentiated into 4 areas:
First. The extractive and manufacturing industry, whose index falls by 8.7%, is extremely worrying data and confirms the data provided by the Ministry of Industry of the 18 consecutive months of declining turnover.
Second. In the supply of electricity and water, the figure falls by 31.2%, due to the large drop in prices after the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and the errors of the European Commission in its Energy Agenda.
Third. The Wholesale and Retail Trade index also seems to be doing poorly, falling by 2.8% and which again fits with the VAT collection figure, which only grows by 0.8%, even below the inflation that It was 3.4% accumulated as of December.
Room. The only sector in which the index rises is non-financial services and it does so thanks to tourism, which has broken all historical records, both in revenue and in the number of visitors.
If we add to all this that effective unemployment has skyrocketed by 300,000 more people in the last eight months, The Moncloa factory can continue issuing distorted congratulatory statements, because reality is stubborn and, what is worse, by not recognizing it, no remedies can be given.
