31/03/2015
As the national government of Spain continues to tighten its belt in spite of the imminence of regional and general elections, the amount of money being devoted to public works projects has fallen drastically in the first two months of this year.
The central government put contracts out to tender for the construction of infrastructures for a value of 1,427.6 million euros in January and February, a reduction of 36.5% compared to the same period in 2014 following two successive years of increases due to the work on the AVE high-speed rail network and various road improvement projects. However, the 12-month rolling total continues to rise due to higher levels of investment in the second half of last year, and currently stands at 12,291 million euros, 18% higher than in the previous 12 months.
The Ministry of Development put out contracts for only 293.79 million euros in January and February, 76.3% less than last year, most of this total being allocated to the road network (163.5 million euros) and the AVE (57 million euros). The rest is made up of 62.8 million euros for the country’s ports and 9 million euros to be spent at airports.
The regional governments, though, spent 23% more on infrastructures than in the first two months of last year, total expenditure reaching 431.88 million euros. The biggest spenders have been Madrid, Catalunya, Aragón and Andalucía, while in percentage terms the most significant increases have been recorded in the Basque Country, Aragón and Cantabria: in all three of these regions the amount spent is more than ten times the equivalent in the first two months of 2014.
Spending by the regional government decreased in January and February in only two regions, those of Murcia and the Comunidad Valenciana, where the respective 2015 figures are 80.2% and 78.2% lower than last year’s. In Murcia the two-monthly total is 4.67 million euros, and in Valencia the government put out contracts for just 8.58 million euros.
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