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Transition to a modern economy

What is now the 9th largest economy in the world has evolved from the regulated economy of Francoism as the latter started to fade out in 1975.

Francoism initiated in the '60s a set of deregulating moves away from its initial total control of the economy; these, along with large infrastructure projects and a gradual opening to tourism, resulted in the paramount economic growth almost overnight which came to be known as the \"Spanish Miracle\".

However, by Franco's death and the dawn of the constitutional monarchy, interventionism was still widespread: basic products like bread and sugar had their prices fixed by the government, large public firms controlled all sectors regarded as strategic (Telephone, tobacco, petrol, etc.), shops had fixed opening and closing times (although this too existed, in other European countries, eg. Germany), both passive and active interest rates were fixed by the government, etc. All these rigidities and more were made obvious by the 1973 oil crisis, which terminated the previous expansion cycle and unleashed a roughly 10 years period of severe industrial crisis (1975-1985). This blow stressed the need to modernize the economy and join the European Community.

Spain's accession to the European Community, now European Union (EU), in January 1986 ushered the country into opening its economy, modernize its industrial base and revise economic legislation. In doing this effort -supported from the EU with amounts of funds from the European Regional Development Fund- Spain greatly improved infrastructures, increased GDP growth, reduced the public debt to GDP ratio, reduced unemployment from 23% to 10%, and reduced inflation to under 3%.

The 1990s and current issues

Following peak growth years in the late 1980s, in 1992 the Spanish economy was finally touched by the late 1980s recession; that happened, tellingly, on the year when the Barcelona Olympics were held and all the construction investment and feasts were finished. The economy, however, recovered during the first Aznar administration (1996-2000), driven by a return of consumer confidence and increased private consumption. Unemployment is at 7.6% (October 2006), which represents a significant improvement from the 80's levels and a better rate than the one of Germany or France. Devaluations of the peseta during the 1990s made Spanish exports more competitive.

In 1999 Spain was amongst the leading group within the EU to adopt the Euro as their accounting money in preparation for its launching as a physical currency, which happened in January 1, 2002. On that date Spain terminated its historic peseta currency and replaced it with the euro, which has become its national currency shared with 15 other countries from the Eurozone . This culminated a fast process of economic modernization even though the strength of the euro since its adoption has raised recent concerns that Spanish exports outside the European Union are being priced out of the range of foreign buyers. However, this has been offset by the facilitation of trade among the euro nations.

Read more at Wikipedia.org