Outlook for Spain in 2021: Digitalization, sustainability and European funds

"Perspectivas España 2021" is an annual report conducted by KPMG with the collaboration of CEOE, which gathers the opinion of more than 1,400 Spanish executives and businessmen from 25 economic sectors on the current economic situation and their business expectations.

KPMG's new report "Perspectivas España 2021" analyzes the year one since the beginning of the pandemic and highlights, among others, the following conclusions:

• Digitization and process development, together with sustainable transformation, will be at the center of corporate strategies, and will be boosted by European recovery funds that are considered as a great opportunity to promote innovative, sustainable, modernizing and technological projects.
  ‑ 46% of the companies surveyed will opt for European funds and 36% have eligible projects.
• Economic growth recovery but without recovering pre-pandemic levels until at least 2022: 61% of the corporates surveyed expect their turnover to increase in 2021, although the vast majority consider that they will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2022 or even beyond that date (31%). 5% of companies would be concerned about their survival.
• For 49% of the respondents, weak domestic demand and rising taxes are the main threats for the economy in the next 12 months. Political uncertainty and outbreaks of the pandemic are other relevant issues that could influence the evolution of the economy according to respondents.
• More than half of the companies consider borrowing to be able to grow organically while one in four would do so to refinance existing debt.