MADRID, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Spain's economy would grow by 2.6 percent in 2018, according to the last predictions announced by the Spanish government on Monday.
The government has revised up its economic predictions for both 2017 and 2018. The Spanish economy would grow by 3 percent this year, as opposed to the previously predicted 2.7 percent, and by 2.6 percent in 2018, as opposed to the previously predicted 2.5 percent.
The government also predicted a 17.4 percent unemployment rate for 2017, which is 0.1 percentage point lower than the rate previously predicted, and a 15.4 percent unemployment rate for 2018, which is 0.2 percentage point lower than previous forecast.
The government estimated that this year a total of 518,000 jobs will be created which will help cut unemployment by 488,000 to 3.75 million people. In 2018, it is expected that there will be 503,000 jobs more, while unemployed people would fall by 393,000 to 3.36 million.
The government expects the country's unemployment rate to fall to 11.1 percent by 2020 with more than 20.5 million jobs.
Spain's Minister of Economy and Competitiveness, Luis de Guindos, said that the recovery of employment takes time, explaining that the crisis hitting Spain was hard. However he said that the effect of economic growth on job creation was "very intense". Enditem
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