At international level, the country scores highly in indicators of international competitiveness, such as The Heritage Foundation’s “economic freedom”, the World Bank’s “ease of doing business”, the World Economic Forum’s “global competitiveness“, and Transparency International’s “corruption perception index”. As you will readily agree, despite these impressive scores, there remain challenges in attracting foreign direct investment outside the mining sector.
In the first quarter of 2015, real GDP in the euro area rose by 0.4%, quarter on quarter, after 0.3% in the last quarter of 2014. In recent quarters, domestic demand and, particularly, private consumption were the main drivers behind the ongoing recovery. The latest survey data to May remain consistent with a continuation of the modest growth trend in the second quarter.