The GDP generated by the economy of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country registered a real growth of 4.2% in 2006, according to data elaborated by EUSTAT. This rate of growth in 2006 was 3% above that attained by the Spanish economy (3.9%), 1.4% above that attained by the Monetary Union-13 (2.8%), and 1.2% of that attained by the EU-27 (3,0%) and 1.3% above that of the USA (2.9%).

If an analysis is made of the Basque economy since the year 2000, it is possible to see that after the noteworthy GDP growth in the nineteen-nineties, which were close to 5% annually, and which culminated in the year 2000 with a real increase of 5.2%, there was a deceleration that ended in 2002 with a real rate of 2.4%. As from 2003 there is a constant recovery of the growth rates, which reached their maximum level in 2006, with a rate of growth of 4.2%.

In the 2000-2006 period, the Basque economy grew 22.6%, which in terms of real annual accumulative rates reaches 3.4%. The Spanish economy had a slightly smaller growth, of 22.0%, with a real annual rate of 3.4%, followed at a distance by the USA, with am annual rate of 2.4% and by the European Union-27, with a rate of 2.0% in the same period.

Graph 1. GDP p/m. Inter-annual growth rates. (%)ç

Source: Economic Accounts, Eustat.

Data on Spain: INE. Data UE-27, Euro Zone-13 and USA: Eurostat.

Graph 1.- GDP growth index. Year 2000=100

Source: Economic Accounts, Eustat.

Data on Spain: INE. Data UE-27, Euro Zone-13 and USA: Eurostat.

When analysing the evolution of the per capita GDP in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country turns out to be one of the territories in which it has increased the most in 2006 with respect to 2000, 11.4% more, at the same level as Ireland (+12.7%) and Greece (+11,4%). The highest growth is observed in Luxemburg (+33,6%), but the richest countries in 2000 experienced a downward trend during this period: Italy (-13.7%), Denmark (-5.5%), Germany (-5,3%) and Sweden (-5.1%).

Table 2: Evolution of the per capita GDP

Source: Economic Accounts, Eustat. Data on Spain: INE. Data UE-27, Euro Zone-13 and USA: Eurostat.

NOTE ON METHODOLOGY: The data included in this press release are the result of processes of updating and improvement carried out every five years in the economic accounts systems, which coincide with the drafting of the input-output model tables corresponding to years ending in 0 and in 5, in this case those corresponding to the year 2005. In the Eustat website it is possible to find the series of the main macroeconomic aggregates as from 1980.