“We started this year at cruising speed, which indicates growth will be around three percent,” Luis de Guindos told lawmakers during a debate on this year's budget.
He said that Spain's gross domestic product growth may “even be very similar to that of last year”, when the economy grew by 3.2 percent – double the eurozone average.
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The Spanish economy has benefited from a record number of foreign visitors, strong exports, low interest rates and low oil prices.
But the unemployment rate, while falling, remains high at 18.7 percent, the second highest level in the eurozone after Greece's.
De Guindos reiterated that the government's aim was to lower unemployment to 16.6 percent this year, down from a peak of close to 27 percent in 2013 at the height of the economic crisis.
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