Spain's economy surpassed its pre-pandemic size last year, revised official data showed on Monday, pointing to a stronger recovery than previously estimated that, according to the economy ministry, should allow for a greater debt reduction this year.

The Spanish statistics institute on Monday revised the 2022 gross domestic product's growth rate to 5.8% from an original 5.5% after computing final data.

The INE, as the institute is known, also revised the 2021 data to a 6.4% growth from a previous 5.5% and the 2020 data to a 11.2% contraction from 11.3%.

The economy ministry said the revision means the country's debt-to-GDP ratio should end this year below 110%, down from 113.2% in 2022 and below the government's latest forecast of 11.9%.

Spain was one of the EU countries hardest hit by the pandemic, due to the bite it took out of the country's key services sector, especially tourism.

The difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics during the pandemic has led major European economies to revise their GDP data for 2021.

The Netherlands has revised upwards by 1.3 points, the

United Kingdom by 1.1 points and Germany by 0.6 points, said the INE, which is also due to revise quarterly data for the past three years on Friday.

 

(Reporting by Matteo Allievi and Belén Carreño, editing by Inti Landauro and Andrei Khalip)