Economic blues

By Jason Moore THE Balearic government forecast last week that the islands would escape the world-wide recession. A bold statement especially when you consider at the moment there are 75'000 people in the islands without a job. The government believes that tourism will save the day. Now, I admire their confidence and I sincerely hope they are right but let's face it with Britain and Germany in recession, I sincerely doubt that the islands are going to have a record year for tourism. Those tourists who do come here will be watching their pennies. More British tourists will be holidaying outside the euro-zone this year with bookings to Turkey and Cyprus on the increase. What the Balearic government should be doing is ensuring that prices are kept under control and allowing shops to open when they want. Also, there is always plenty of talk about tourism but the local government should also be helping the real estate market by singing the islands´ praises across the globe and underlining the fact that the Balearics has great quality of life. There is reason to be optimistic but let us remember that the Spanish economy is in a terrible mess with unemployment now standing at 3.5 million. Yes, you can be confident for the future but there is still work to be done.