This is progressing slowly because their income is weak and so the adjustment has to proceed mainly through the contraction of credit. Under these conditions, aggregate credit to the private sector will probably still take some time to achieve positive rates. This situation at aggregate level can and should be compatible with differing behaviours of credit to firms and to households, so as to allow financial resources to flow to those sectors in a solid position to undertake viable spending, investment and hiring projects. The results of preliminary analyses at the Banco de España indicate that such reallocation of financial resources is already taking place. However, there are still some frictions affecting most notably lending to SMEs, which as you know are particularly vulnerable to crises such as that we have witnessed. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Under its remit, the Banco de España has recently adopted specific measures addressing this sector, such as the redefinition of SME for the purposes of prudential regulation or the early application of the supporting factor for capital requirements associated with SME loans. The Banco de España has also identified possible courses of action in other areas. A far-from-exhaustive list would include exploring ways of strengthening the role of the ICO, simplifying the current public framework of financial support to SMEs and, in the longer term, designing mechanisms to capture homogeneous high-quality information on the most significant aspects of SMEs’ business to make it easier for them to access bank credit.
In terms of competitiveness, progress since 2008 has been most significant. On Banco de España estimates, we will by early 2014 have regained, relative to the average of the euro area countries, all the competitiveness forgone from 2000 to 2008. These gains in competitiveness have been underpinned, above all, by the moderation of wage costs, a trend to which the labour market reform approved in early 2012 has proven conducive in respect of collective bargaining. Along the same lines, inflation has been very contained since 2009, and this has naturally contributed to the recovery in competitiveness. The export sector has shown great capacity and has notably increased its presence and sales both in the euro area and in other markets. Suffice it to say that this year, from January to August, the trade surplus, excluding energy, was almost double that of 2012, climbing from € billion to € billion. These developments have been upheld by corporate restructuring that has enabled the average value exported per company and the export base to increase. The sustained increase in the number of exporting companies over the past five years is due mainly to the growing participation of SMEs. Our trade balance with all regions has improved, with the exception of the oil-exporting countries. Spain is running a surplus both with the euro area and with the rest of the European Union.