MADRID: Spain's economy picked up pace in the fourth quarter, official data showed on Thursday, adding to signs that the country is emerging from five years of stop-start recession which destroyed millions of jobs.
The Spanish economy expanded by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter from the third, accelerating from the previous quarter's growth of 0.1 percent, the National Statistics Institute said in a report.
The figure were below earlier estimates by the institute and the Bank of Spain that the eurozone's fourth-biggest economy grew by 0.3 in the October-December period.
Spain's economy shrank by 1.2 percent over the whole of 2013, its fourth annual contraction in five years, as the country struggled with the aftermath of a decade-long property bubble that burst in 2008.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Tuesday in his state of the nation address he saw the economy growing 1.0 percent this year, up from the current 0.7 percent forecast, and by 1.5 percent next.
He credited his tough economic reforms and austerity policies with pulling Spain back from the precipice of a full-blown bailout, widely feared in mid-2012.
"Spain was seen as a burden for Europe and now it is seen as a motor," he said.
To reduce Spain's unemployment rate of 26 percent, one of Europe's highest, Rajoy announced that social security contributions on new hirings would be cut.
Though avoiding a widely feared economic rescue in mid-2012, Spain's government obtained a 41.3-billion rescue loan from the eurozone to save tottering banks, whose assets had been hammered by plunging property values.
Besides slashing spending to rein in Spain's yawning public deficits, the government reformed the labour market in 2012 by cutting dismissal costs and making it easier to change work conditions.
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