Spain Posts Fiscal Deficit In The First Half of 2008

The Spanish government posted a budget deficit in the first half of 2008 as the housing collapse continued to hit tax revenue. The Spanish administration posted a deficit of 4.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion) compared with a 5.2 billion-euro surplus a year earlier, according to the Finance Ministry. The deficit was equivalent to 0.42 percent of annual GDP (which is something just over 1,000 billion euros). So we have gone from a surplus running at an annualised rate of 1% to a roughly similar deficit in the space of a year, and of course the economy continues to down in freefall.