The Official Chamber of Commerce, Services, Industry and Navigation of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and CaixaBank presented today the Regional Economic Situation Bulletin corresponding to the first quarter of 2025, a report that concludes that the growth forecast for this year is 3%, one point less than the estimate made by the institution for the previous year.
The president of the Chamber, Santiago Sesé, who was accompanied by the territorial director of CaixaBank in the Canary Islands, Manuel Afonso, asserted that the report confirms that the Canary Islands economy maintains a positive growth rate, despite its moderation, driven by household consumption, the increase in tourist spending and population growth. He insisted that the figure "is still a relevant figure, especially in a context of international uncertainty."
"However, we have to go beyond the figures and we have to ask ourselves how we are growing and where this growth is leading us." "We cannot and should not be satisfied only with growing," he stressed and emphasized the need to define a more solid and sustainable economic model for the Canary Islands.
The president warned that this growth "should not hide the structural weaknesses that we have been dragging along for some time", such as the stagnation of productivity, the lack of qualified labor, problems of access to housing or pressure on essential public services.
"Unresolved structural problems, such as population aging, pressure on basic infrastructure or the shortage of trained personnel, are already taking their toll. Either we change the way we approach our future or we will put something as valuable as our welfare state at risk," he said.
For his part, the territorial director of CaixaBank in the Canary Islands, Manuel Afonso, said that "everything indicates that the Canary Islands will be one of the communities that will grow the most in Spain, which is, without a doubt, very good news." "So, from CaixaBank, we agree with the Chamber in that forecast of 3% growth" and added that, "although it is somewhat lower than the previous year, if we combine it with other factors such as the containment of inflation, which is already beginning to be noticed, favorable expectations open up."
In addition, Manuel Afonso stressed that everything indicates that interest rates will continue to fall, and that could further reinforce this growth path, as long as stability is maintained.
He reported that the credit data is being very positive and gave a relevant fact: 93% of those new mortgages in CaixaBank are at a fixed rate. "This gives a lot of stability to families, who will not have to worry about future increases in interest rates, such as those we experienced recently."
Deceleration of growth
However, the Bulletin makes it clear that, since the beginning of the year, a slowdown in the growth rate of the Canary Islands economy has begun to be noticed, a trend that will probably continue throughout the year. The president of the Chamber stressed that this forecast does not take into account the possible impact of the trade war started by the United States.
As for the tourism sector, in March, the total spending of tourists grew by 5.5%, and the average spending per person per day increased by 6.2%, standing at 186 euros. The moderation of prices has also contributed to this boost in consumption, since inflation in March was 1.6%, a figure that is 0.7 points below the national figure, which was 2.3%.
The increase in demand has been supported by the good performance of employment and by the growth in the arrival of tourists. The Canary Islands closed the first quarter of the year with 1,024,100 people employed, a record figure, and 160,200 people unemployed.
This represents 27,900 more employed and 14,000 fewer unemployed than a year ago. Despite these advances, the unemployment rate rose in the quarter by 1.62% and stood at 13.53% of the active population, a figure that is 2.17 points higher than the national average.
For this reason, Santiago Sesé warned that "blinding ourselves with tourism runs the risk of preventing us from clearly seeing the efforts that are being made in other sectors to diversify the economy."
"Tourism is pulling other sectors, yes, but if we do not address the imbalances, we run the risk of mortgaging our future," he said. "Hence, the most important thing is to make an objective diagnosis of the weaknesses of our economic and social model," he added to explain the importance of not "demonizing" the tourism sector.
