Spain shows fastest growth in six years: Central bank

MADRID, Apr 24 (AFP): Spain's economy grew at the fastest rate in six years in the first quarter of 2014 as it pulled out of a long, job-destroying downturn, the central bank said in a preliminary estimate Thursday.
The eurozone's fourth-largest economy expanded by 0.4 per cent on a quarterly basis, the Bank of Spain said in a monthly report, citing initial data.
It was the sharpest quarterly growth rate since the first quarter of 2008 when a decade-long property bubble imploded, tipping the nation into a double-dip recession that wiped out millions of jobs and flooded the nation in debt.
"In the first quarter of 2014, the Spanish economy continued on a path of gradual recovery in the a context of increasing normalisation on the financial markets and a gradual consolidation of the labour market," the central bank said.
On an annual basis, the Spanish economy grew 0.5 per cent in the first quarter, the bank estimated, the first year-on-year expansion in more than two years.
Spain's economy is set to grow by 1.2 per cent in 2014 and 1.7 per cent in 2015, the Bank of Spain said, confirming an earlier forecast.
Spain emerged gingerly from a two-year downturn in mid-2013 but still suffers from an unemployment rate of nearly 26 per cent.