Spain sees 2016 growth verging on three percent

Spain will post growth of 2.9 percent for 2016, Finance Minister Luis de Guindos said Sunday, revising an earlier forecast of 2.7 percent as the country's recovery gathers momentum.
"Our observations indicate stronger growth for 2016, close on 3.0 percent, coming in at 2.9 percent," De Guindos said on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Chengdu, China.
De Guindos told Spanish RNE radio he saw a relative slowdown in 2017 "perfectly in line" with eurozone and global trend forecasts and expressed confidence Madrid would avoid a European Commission fine for overshooting spending targets.
Madrid and Lisbon are appealing for leniency from penalties of up to 0.2 percent of their economic output.
Spain's government forecasts 2017 growth of 2.4 percent as the country emerges further from a 2008 property crash which sent the economy into a tailspin before 2014 saw the eurozone's fourth-largest economy post its first full-year of growth in six years.