Private investment: The weak link in Spain´s expansionary phase
Spanish investment
Fecha: enero 2026
Raymond Torres
SEFO, Spanish and International Economic & Financial Outlook, V. 15 N.º1 (January 2026)
Healthy economic growth coupled with strong inflows of European funds under Next Generation EU should have created a favourable climate for corporate investment, a key variable for productivity and future prosperity. However, private investment has lagged expectations while remaining below prepandemic levels. Indeed, despite a recent pickup, gross fixed capital formation among the non-financial corporations lies 1.4% lower than in 2019, adjusting for inflation. This lag reflects the climate of uncertainty, at home and abroad, which has encouraged firms to delay investment decisions and accumulate surplus savings despite positive macroeconomic conditions. To unlock potential private investment flows, it is thus vital to tackle the impediments that undermine the knock-on effects of the Next Generation programme, including the need to increase legal certainty, strengthen institutional stability and diversify the financing instruments available to the economy.