Business News & Financial News

In Spain 21st October 2025

Spanish Family Businesses Rail Against Excessive Regulation and Absenteeism

The 28th Congress of Spanish Family Businesses, which brings together over 600 executives of family firms in Burgos, has sounded the alarm about the excessive regulation and absenteeism that are stifling their growth. Fifty-five percent (55%) of those surveyed identified absenteeism -in Spain, more than one million people are absent from work every day- as the main risk to their competitiveness, ahead of “the difficulty of finding qualified professionals” (52%)…

In Europe 20th October 2025

S&P unexpectedly downgrades France’s credit rating to A+ with stable outlook due to ‘uncertainty over public finances’

Bankinter | S&P unexpectedly downgraded France’s credit rating to A+ with a stable outlook (from AA- with a negative outlook, since February 2025). S&P noted that ‘uncertainty over public finances remains high’ and that in the ‘absence of significant additional measures to reduce the deficit’, consolidation will be ‘slower than previously anticipated’. Furthermore, ‘the lack of visibility on the fiscal consolidation plan is weighing on France’s economic growth’. Bankinter analysis…

In the World 17th October 2025

Average spending per traveller during China’s Golden Week 0.55% lower than last year and 3% below pre-pandemic levels.

Intermoney | In the Asian giant, the first figures we saw for Golden Week in early October once again highlight the sluggishness of Chinese domestic demand. It is true that domestic tourist trips reached 888 million, up from 765 million in the same week in 2024, but this was because there was an extra public holiday this year. The key figure for assessing the strength of demand is the average…

“We need to approach negotiations with the U.S. on terms that are completely different from those currently being proposed”

Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…

“Fifteen years ago, the European economy was larger than that of the U.S. Today, the U.S. economy is one and a half times that of Europe”

“It is a shame that we are able to mobilize economic resources for large-scale projects abroad, but not in our Spanish market”

In an interview with Consejeros magazine, Sacyr’s coordinating advisor, Elena Jiménez de Andrade, explains that now “We have great capacity to win projects, a capacity that until now contrasted with a series of financial limitations and balance sheet size. However, in this strategic cycle, we are going to eliminate those barriers. That is why we have set an ambitious goal for 2033: to triple the value of our assets. We…

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