재정위기 겪은 스페인, 지금은 어떠한가
When it comes to eye-watering levels of debt and general economic turmoil, Greece and Spain spring to mind as both went through a torrid time in the aftermath of the financial crisis that rocked the eurozone a few years ago.
But unlike Greece, Spain appears to be on the road to recovery. How did it do it and what can we learn from the Spanish experience?
Our Kim Ji-yeon files this report from Barcelona.
Spain was one of the countries hardest hit by the 2008 global financial crisis.
Its economy was left in tatters after the bubble burst on its housing market and national debt soared.
Even some eight years later,... the eurozone's fourth largest economy is still suffering from one of the worst unemployment rates in the bloc at around 20 percent.
So can it truly be said that Spain is back on its feet now?
"Spain has worked hard to dig its economy out of a hole after it was forced to ask for an EU bailout in 2012. And it looks as if those efforts are paying off with its economy recovering on the back of rising domestic consumption."
The Spanish government's austerity measures,... while painful,... have helped the country recover more flexibility in its labor market.
However,... this came at the expense of big cuts to pensions and healthcare services.
Soaring domestic consumption, industry investment and record tourism also helped the Spanish economy grow three-point-two percent in 2015,... its fastest pace since 2007.
"The banks have understood that it's better at the end to restructure the debt and to get it paid later but to get it paid than don't do the restructuring and then having the company go bankrupt and lose everything. So a lot of these have already been done a lot of these renegotiations. So I think that the economy is now on a much better shape and going up reasonably."
The International Monetary Fund forecasts the Spanish economy will grow two-point-seven percent this year.
The professor says the recovery in Spain and some other European countries are good reference cases for a country like China that is also restructuring its economy.
"Sometimes the press says the economy collapses from 7-point-zero to 6-point-9 that is not very much but if you go into depth you see okay these people who were doing quite well they do well and not so much have gone down. And people who were very poor than they go up. So at the end, it's much better this 6-point-9 than the other because this generates a lot of consumption."
He says countries that depend on China for exports would also benefit as demand for their goods and services would increase.
However,... the professor adds that a "Brexit" or Britain leaving the EU would severely damage the eurozone as it would lose its biggest English-speaking finance hub.
Brits decide on whether they want to stay in or leave the EU in late June.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News, Barcelona.
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