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Bankruptcy on rise in Spain

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-06 09:40

MADRID: The Spanish National Institute of Statistics said Wednesday that bankruptcy continues to rise in the country.

A total of 3,285 companies and individuals were declared insolvent in the first half of the year.

That is more than three times the figure for the entire year of 2007, when just 976 petitions were filed.

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It is also three times the number of cases for the first half of 2008, when there were 1,056 cases of insolvency.

Of the petitions for bankruptcy this year, 1,727 were filed between April and June and the remainder between January and March.

Small-sized companies seem to have been disproportionally hit by the crisis with six out of 10 companies that declared themselves bankrupt having an annual turnover of less than 2 million euros (US$2.9 million).

Meanwhile, self-employed workers have also been badly affected. The number of individuals who have had to declare an inability to meet their debts has shot up by 192 percent, while the number of families that have been forced into the same situation has increased by 151 percent.

These figures were released just days after unemployment was revealed to have fallen in Spain for the third consecutive month.

With the end of the tourist season, which provided many short-term working opportunities, employment could again become a problem for Spain.