Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to this new edition of BBVA Strategic Talks, which today will be focused on BBVA Research views on the global macro environment and the outlook for our core markets. It's my pleasure to be joined today by Jorge Sicilia, BBVA's Chief Economist, together with Miguel Cardoso, Carlos Serrano, and Seda Güler , Chief Economists for BBVA Spain, Mexico, and Türkiye. Here with me in Madrid are Jorge and Miguel, and connected from Mexico and Türkiye, we have Carlos and Seda as well. Today, the team will start sharing their views on the latest economic developments and key challenges and opportunities in our core markets. After their presentations, we will open the line to take your questions in a live Q and A session. As we are currently in our blackout period, I will kindly request you to limit your questions to macro and financial system-related topics.
Unfortunately, we will not be able today to address any topic related to the bank's performance. Thank you in advance for your understanding. In any case, I hope you will find this session useful. I strongly encourage you to participate and make the most of it, given the expertise and on-the-ground knowledge of the BBVA economic team on our core markets. With that, without further delay, Jorge, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Patricia, for the invitation. Thank you for those of you that are attending this call. The idea here today is not to give a comprehensive discussion on how we see the global outlook on our footprint countries, but rather to tackle the main issues that you have commented to the IR team that you're interested in, basically in the three areas of Spain, Mexico, and Türkiye. I will just give a short introduction on global issues, only on the ones that I think are relevant for some of the elements that we're going to share with you in each of the three geographies. In any case, if we miss in this presentation issues that you're concerned about, be it about these countries or others in which we're based, happy to answer your questions.
Let me start with the economic outlook for this year and 2027, with a very simple framework in which we all need to analyze what's going on. There are two tectonic forces that right now are significantly affecting the economic outlook. They're doing it across different horizons. They are having an impact not only on the very short term, also on the forces that shape our views about trend potential growth, for example, also how we think in terms of the changing of economic regimes that we might be seeing in different parts of the world. Of course, those two tectonic forces are related to geopolitical concerns.
There are many elements that fall under this definition. We are focusing on conflicts, on strategic rivalry, on tariffs, protectionism, the use of choke points, strategic autonomy, defense, and those are gaining importance in the economic analysis. On the other hand, we have the transformation that the AI is injecting into many economies. The channels are better understood, probably, but the extent of the impact, t he scale and scope of what might mean for different countries and sectors is far from certain. At the same time, we do know that when we go to longer horizons, demographic migrations play a role, as do climate events. In any case, the main point here is that many of the elements that we are trying to understand in terms of building scenarios and doing projections are very much related to these long-term issues.
Together with the Russia invasion of Ukraine, the main visible geo event, of course, these days or this month, is related to the attacks on Iran by the U.S. and Israel. This is changing the dynamics on a daily basis in terms of the geopolitical tensions and in terms of the impact on oil and other prices on the supply chain. We're now in a, again, complicated period to understand, but to put it in perspective, we still are at geopolitical risk that we consider lower than the ones we have been witnessing over the previous months.
On the other hand, when we look at oil prices and gas prices, we're not only below the levels that we have been seeing over the previous months, but in any case, those relatively high levels were, in any case, lower than the ones we had in the Russia-Ukraine invasion, especially if you looked at them in real terms. This is something that can change very quickly. It is complex, but in any case, we build our projections in the baseline scenario with the idea that although many elements remain in place as the agreement between the two countries doesn't incorporate a clear roadmap on many of the issues where they still have differences, the conditions are still set in place to expect a decline in oil prices going forward, which is what we have.
Our path is or has been higher than the path that we have been having over the past three or four weeks. It can be higher than what we have in our projections if things turn sour from where we are today. In any case, we have this ingrained in our model. This baseline scenario of oil prices is what we use to do the projections. With all this in mind, we have a relatively benign outlook for growth given the shocks that we are getting. The U.S. will grow over the next two years over 2%.
The Eurozone is going to suffer a little bit more. We have recently revised down our forecast on account of having a larger impact of what is happening in the closure of Hormuz, also because we have now some issues of high volatility growth in Ireland that is also changing the number in the Eurozone. On China, we are relatively comfortable with the projection. The weakness that we have seen in the latest data is overall in line not only with what we expected, with what the government expected, is unlikely to trigger any type of measures that, for now, will change that forecast. Many of what is happening depends on the AI boom, as you probably know.
This has become even more salient in the recent revision of Q1 data in the U.S. as consumption has been revised down, basically investment mainly related to AI is supporting growth. That support of growth is also having spillovers beyond the U.S., not only because this is something that other countries are also investing in, the AI boom, but as you can see on the right-hand chart, there is a lot of imports that the U.S. needs in order to feed all the investments that they are undertaking in this sector. Right? What you see on the chart on the right is how many points of growth it adds or it subtracts in terms of exports and imports.
The other issue that very much related to geopolitics that in Europe is playing a significant role, in the U.S. It will as well, but the expenditure is already significant, in the margin is not going to be so much, is on defense. Right? What we see when we analyze the impact of all the shocks that we have been having on the Euro area, many of the revisions have been to the downside in terms of uncertainty, tariffs, for the time strength of the Euro, et cetera. Fiscal expenditure, which is mainly related to defense, has been supporting growth significantly.
By the exercises that we have made on multipliers in Europe on defense spending, it has long lags, but it is relatively easy to see multipliers that should be larger than one, in some cases, over the short-term period, significantly higher than, or slightly higher than 1.5. The variable where we are seeing more impact in terms of what is happening in Iran is related, of course, with inflation. We have had to increase the forecast inflation due to increase in oil prices. Beyond that, we are seeing very little second-round effects, not even very clear effects on transportation costs of other goods, including agriculture. For now, we are relatively comfortable not to speak about wages or inflation expectations, which are very contained. For now, we are relatively comfortable with core inflation that are going to be between 2% and 3% in the U.S. and Europe.
On HICP, of course, whatever happens with oil prices is going to be very significant. Now, this generates, of course, a difficult environment for central banks. It's very difficult to deal with negative supply shocks, so consecutive negative supply shocks. They are starting to communicate in their own ways how they want to address this type of shocks. We still think that there is sufficient room to think that the baseline scenario for the Fed is still to wait throughout the next months and probably until the end of this year and then see how things settle down. In the case of Europe, similarly, they increased interest rates as they perceived that this was a robust move in the context of being an adequate move in all the scenarios. Let me remind you that inflation right now is lower than even the lowest scenario.
Probably in the realm of views of what the ECB is going to discuss in the next few months is that probably this increase in interest rates, absent second-round effect, is probably going to be enough. Having said that, we are all very conscious that in this world where we have these long-term tectonic forces playing in the ground, at the same time, the likelihood that we have to attach to a particular scenario is especially low. It's probably lower than the ones that we have been able to build since the global financial crisis and since the pandemic.
We are again in a period where we have to understand that many elements can change the scenarios, and in this regard, it's not only that the probability of the baseline is lower, but is that many different scenarios on the positive or the negative sides, depending on demand or supply shocks, which could be positive or negative. Here we pencil in for you some of the ones that we're following in terms of attaching probabilities, is very relevant for the analysis. To finalize my part before I give the floor to Miguel, just a couple of issues on geostrategy that I have not touched upon in this presentation. As I said, I think it will be relevant for some of the analysis in our footprint.
The first is that tariffs are having an impact on trade, but at the same time, growth is sufficiently large, and the needs of different countries continue to exist, that what is happening is that global growth continues to increase at a relatively solid pace. U.S. imports are booming, especially in the AI, as you can see here, but the composition of imports is changing, and due to tariffs and due to concerns about geostrategic issues and many others, what we're seeing is a change in the import dynamic pattern in the U.S. It's not only that they import more of certain AI-related projects, but also that they import more from countries that have less tariffs than others. In this regard, in addition, of course, of South Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan, Mexico is one of the countries that has been able to gain significant market share in Europe.
The second element is that geopolitics is not only something that we look in a vacuum. We do think, as I said before, I didn't say it, but it has been going on for some time, and that is why we think it has a structural nature. As you can see, basically, since the global financial crisis, all indicators that we can build in terms of internal geopolitical risk, external risk, so we put them together in this global structural geopolitical risk index, has been increasing since the global financial crisis. We see that when we run the appropriate regressions, it does have an impact on trade and certainly on FDI. Even though there's a lot of sectoral noise, there is an impact of all these elements in how the world is changing. Turning to my last two comments and going back to the short term.
The conflict in Iran is already having an impact on portfolio flows. You see it every day. There is a preference for the U.S. rather than the Euro area when we looked among developed economies, when we looked in emerging economies, taking away China, there is a preference to LATAM, including Mexico and Central America, and emerging markets, ex Asia. There seems to be a trend to continue pumping flows into these countries south of the U.S. In part, this is related to the fact that there is an idea which accompanies the boom in AI in terms of minerals, certainly, and energy-related concerns. There's also an issue of being away from the conflict. Right? This is another way in which using short-term data, we try to analyze the impact of geopolitical analysis or conflicts on CDSs in real-time.
Of course, those are mainly driven by what happens in short-term interest rates and the VIX volatility and economic conditions. When we cluster together all the short-term geopolitical indexes, they do have an impact. What we find is that they have a special impact when combined with other effects. Financial markets and geopolitical, it generates non-linearities in the reaction of financial markets. All this to say, when you look to the right-hand side, and this has happened with the Russia invasion of Ukraine, with the attack from Hamas, the terrorist attack on Israel, and the Israel conflict, the distance that Latin America has from this conflict basically explained the reason why the markets seem to be validating the chart that I put before, which is that this area is an area where flows typically have gone in the recent past.
That would be it on my side for the introduction. Miguel, please.
Hi. Thank you, Jorge, and thank you all for listening. From my side, regarding the Spanish economy, what we see is an extension of the current expansion that we're seeing in terms of GDP growth, in terms of employment growth. Our current forecasts are for GDP to grow 2.4% in 2026, at 2.1% in 2027. This is based on the fact that currently what we're seeing is a relatively strong economy. Quarter-on-quarter growth, currently, we estimate it at 0.7%. In an annualized growth rate, we are seeing that growth remains between 2.5% and 3%. As you can see in this graph, this real estimation compares to first quarter growth that stayed at 0.6%, and this improves in our forecast from the first quarter where we were expecting growth to slow down over the second quarter.
We haven't seen a slowdown related to all this foreign uncertainty, the increase in oil prices. On the contrary, what we're seeing is that at least the job creation data and any real-time indicator is pointing towards, at most, a stabilization in terms of growth in the economy. This, as I said, is despite the fact that the external environment is not very favorable for the Spanish economy. Specifically, this comes as we were revising downward our GDP growth forecast for the Eurozone. As you can see in the left-hand side of the slide. We revised our growth forecast for Europe from 1.1% this year to 0.7%, as incoming data was disappointing and as the impact of these higher energy prices was expected to be negative on the European economy.
We not only revised downwards our 2026 GDP growth forecast, but we also revised our 2027 GDP growth forecast to the downside. This is having a negative impact on our perception of how exports, specifically exports of goods, are going to perform or are performing at this moment in Spanish exports of goods. As you can see from our forecast, we're thinking that this is pulling down the ability of the industry to grow. Spanish exports are expected to drop this year by 1.2%, and then to recover as we get a more favorable scenario for the Spanish economy in 2027.
For at least the short term, what we're seeing is that this is affecting negatively a part of the Spanish economy, basically the industry, along with what is happening in terms of the impact, for example, of Chinese exports towards the Eurozone and the effect that is having specifically in the automobile sector. Despite this, what we're seeing is this strong recovery, specifically as a result of a relatively dynamic sector, the exports of services, which are performing relatively well. What you have here in the left-hand side of this slide is exports of tourism services, consumption of non-residents. We see the number that the National Institute of Statistics publish, and then the data that we get from the expenditure that foreigners do on point-of-sales terminals owned by BBVA.
You can see that even as we are having this relatively high uncertainty in the world scenario, what we're seeing is an acceleration of these kind of expenditures. We expect this to continue as geopolitical risk is probably going to deviate or is already deviating. There is some evidence that this is happening. It's already deviating visitors that would have gone to other destinations, that they are now coming to Spain. As you can see, year-on-year terms, we are seeing growth of this type of consumption around 10%, double digits. What we think that this is going to translate on is that, as you can see, the resiliency of nonresident consumption is going to remain, and it's going to post a growth that is going to remain above GDP growth the next following two years. It's not only exports of tourism services.
As important is what is happening to the exports of non-tourism services. You can see here, on the left-hand side, the average growth rate between 2025 and 2026 of this kind of exports, around 7% yearly average growth, and that has increased towards a 14% average growth between the years 2021 and 2025. You can see that this is more or less evenly distributed between what is happening in information and communication technologies, transport services, business services, that includes engineering services, financial services, trade-related services. All of these are sectors that have relatively high value added. As you can see, we are also thinking that there is capacity to keep growing and therefore for growth in this part of the economy to, again, exceed GDP growth.
Third, a big part of why we're seeing this growth in export services, specifically in tourism and non-tourism services, is the impact that immigration is having. It's not slowing down. As you can see in the left-hand side of the slide, what you get is several indicators related to tourism. If they remain above zero, they are normalized. If they remain above zero, it means that immigration is continuing to grow, and therefore, what we're seeing in 2026 is that this immigration push is continuing. As you know, there is this policy announced by the government, an ongoing process of regularizing immigrants in Spain, and this is going to probably add to the impact in employment. We are thinking that in 2026 and 2027, job creation is going to remain between 450,000-550,000 jobs per year, which is quite an extraordinary number for Spain.
Fourth, what we think is that even the scenario, what we are experiencing is a strengthening on the growth of domestic supply, specifically in consumption. Consumption remains a key driver of growth. What you see here is different factors are supporting consumption spending by households. As you can see, in real terms, gross disposable income is growing at a rate around between 2%-2.5%. Housing wealth, I'm going to talk a little bit about the problems in the housing sector. A big majority of Spanish households are real estate owners. As long as prices keep increasing, that's also adding strength to their willingness to spend. Interest rates remain relatively below what we would have on a historical average. This would be a level that is attractive for households to take on credit.
Therefore, what we are again thinking of is an average growth rate in consumption that would surpass historical average and remain between 2%-3% on a year-on-year basis. This is also going to be a particularly favorable environment for investment growth. Specifically, one kind of investment is residential investment, which we think that is going to increase because all the key variables that normally support residential construction are going to remain favorable. Household formation is going to remain around 200,000 as in the previous years. Home prices are going to keep going up. There you have our forecast for 2026 and 2027. This is going to increase the profitability of projects. Interest rates are going to remain, again, relatively low by historical standards.
Therefore, as you can see, we expect residential investment to accelerate over the short term, and this is going to also be accompanied by other type of investment. I haven't mentioned the ending of NGEU funds, this is going to also increase investment in Spain. Also what we have is this increase in defense expenditure that we're seeing. In the left-hand side of the slide, what you see is this commitments that the government has announced regarding specific defense-related projects that amount to between EUR 20 billion- EUR 25 billion. It is true that Spain does not have a relatively big defense industry. As you can see on the right-hand side, what you would expect to be directly affected, what we would expect to be traditional defense, represents a relatively small share of value added.
If you go and try to follow which other sectors can benefit from this increase in defense expenditure, what you get is that industries that represent around 2%-3% of value added in the Spanish economy could benefit. If you extend that to services that could also potentially benefit from this higher spending in defense, you could get to even around 15% of the value added of the Spanish economy. Finally, fiscal policy is being relatively expansionary. You can see here that since 2022, the discretionary fiscal impulse has amounted to between 1.5%-2% of GDP. This is going to support the economy in 2026. Unfortunately, going towards 2027, this is going to also explain why we see this slowdown going towards 2027, as some of these measures are going to expire. Therefore, this is going to subtract from part of growth.
Another advantage of the Spanish economy is all this investment that has been made and that has increased, as you can see in the left-hand side of the slide, the participation of renewable energy in the production of electricity. This is implying, as you can also see, that there is a favorable differential in the price of electricity in the wholesale market. Unfortunately, there are some structural issues regarding infrastructure that are not supporting the translation of this favorable gap that we see in the wholesale electricity prices towards inflation. This is, again, a structural challenge towards the future remains elevated when compared to the Eurozone. What we see is that the difference between domestic inflation and the Eurozone inflation right now is suspected to remain between 0.5-1 percentage point .
Talking about the structural challenges, the one related to housing is very important. We estimate that what you see here is that the housing deficit in Spain, and this measured by the difference between household creation and the number of units that are being built in Spain, could reach around 800,000 by 2027- 2028. Even with this acceleration that we have in investment in the housing sector, that would be just enough to stabilize the deficit that we are witnessing. It would take an acceleration towards levels of investment in housing close to 10% of GDP, levels that we only saw in 2007-2008, at the peak of the bubble, in order to reduce that deficit that we are seeing. Finally, in terms also of structural challenges, going forward, we are seeing a strong recovery of the Spanish economy.
GDP could go to amount to somewhere around between 15%-20%, or to reach levels 15%-20% above what we had in 2019. This is a growth explained mostly by the increase in employment, as you can see in this graph. When you begin to scratch and try to measure the impact, for example, in wages, you see that growth does not even reach 10% since 2019, and that productivity remains relatively stagnant. This is basically one of the main challenges of the Spanish economy. With that, I'll finish.
Thank you, Miguel. Let's cross the Atlantic, let's go to the Mexican economy. Carlos, please.
Thank you, Patricia and Jorge, hi, everyone. We're going to go now over the slides of the Mexican economy. Can we go over the next slide, please? The first thing to convey to you is that the Mexican economy is going through a phase of low growth. Growth in 2025 was 0.7%. We have data on the first quarter of this year, where there was a contraction on a quarter-on-quarter basis of 0.6%. In general, the last years, in the previous administration and this administration, we have seen a period of slower than usual growth. Closer to 1%, rather than the historical 2% of the last three decades. The main reason why the Mexican economy has been slowing down, especially last year and this year, is what you see on the right-hand side, which is that investment is declining.
This year, we have data on the first quarter, investment declined 3% in comparison with the first quarter of last year. In that quarter, growth had already declined 6.5%. Overall, investment since July 2024 has declined around 8%. One of the main reasons of this decline is some uncertainty around institutional issues. In particular, companies do not know well how the new judicial system is going to work. But also, this deceleration in the past two years has to do with the fact that the Mexican government has been undergoing a fiscal consolidation process, and as a result, public investment has been declining. This is one of the reasons of the slowdown. If we go to next one. However, one positive news on this front is that the government has announced that it will award 37 contracts to private companies to generate clean electricity.
We think this is a very positive development. First, because it marks a sharp contrast with the previous administration, where basically private participation in general on energy was completely shut down. Now this government has been saying that they need private investment in energy, and these contracts, they have not been signed, they have been awarded. We have yet to know how the contracts will look like. But it is very positive that among the winners, we see some developers that have very good reputation and history. Not all of them, but the majority of them have that. Again, the fact that the government is willing to open the sector to private participation, we think is a positive signal.
Not only because this means higher investment in this sector, but also because this was one of the main bottlenecks that prevented Mexico to attract higher investment across many sectors to take advantage of nearshoring opportunities, which we think are opportunities that are still there, as we will see shortly. If we go to the next one, please. As I was saying, the deceleration is explained mainly by a decline in investment. That decline in investment has meant a deceleration in job creation, which has meant a deceleration in consumption, which has been somewhat resilient but has decelerated. But on the components on aggregate demand, what is having a very good performance is exports. Exports, we have data until May. They have been growing at 28%.
The main reason is that despite all the noise, Mexico has much better access in terms of tariffs to the U.S. market than basically all the rest of the countries. Except probably with Canada. So exports have been growing, as I was telling you, at a very strong pace. That being said, this has been a recomposition on the Mexican export base, where exports of automobiles are flat and declining a little bit. They have been declining 0.5%, in part because demand in the U.S. has been flat, but also because, in particular, that sector has been hit with a 25% tariff. Basically, a tariff that has been applied to every country, except some countries that have been able to negotiate better tariffs, such as Japan, Korea, and the European Union that face 15% tariffs. Mexico is still in the process of negotiating that.
If Mexico is able to get also a 15% tariff, we think it will remain competitive. So far, these two factors are resulting in the fact that auto exports are flat. On the other hand, the rest of exports are doing quite well. In particular, exports of computer equipment have been doing really well. They have been growing in the period January to May, they've been growing at 73%. The main reason is that Mexico has been able to insert itself in this boom of AI investment that Jorge was mentioning. As a result, exports in that sector are doing quite well. Looking overall, the fact that Mexico is able to export 82% of total exports tariff-free to the U.S. is one of the main reasons I will explain that the external sector is having this very good performance. If we go to next one, please.
With all this, we are expecting the economy to gradually recover. Our estimate for this year is 1.2%. We think it will go to 1.8% next year. A gradual recovery as some of the uncertainty fades, and we see more investment, in particular, this private investment in energy. If we go to next one, please. Now on inflation, just I will mention that inflation is behaving quite well. There was a significant increase in inflation in the first quarter, where general inflation reached 4.6%. Basically, that was explained by some temporary supply shocks, some special taxes that were introduced at the beginning of the year, some weather issues that resulted in a significant increase in agricultural products. Those shocks, as was expected, had been fading. Now inflation in Mexico is at historical levels before the post-pandemic inflation surge. Inflation is at 3.4%.
Within the next couple of months, we are going to see some negative base effects, and probably it can go up to 4%. Basically, we are seeing a situation where inflation is behaving the same way that before the post-pandemic inflation surge. As a result, as you know, the Central Bank cut interest rates two times this year. You can see here the behavior of monetary policy rate. What we think is that we are going to see a long pause in monetary policy. We think these rates of 6.5% will stay there for the remainder of this year and most likely during all 2027. Just to mention something, some analysts were worried about the fact that the Central Bank was easing monetary policy while the Fed was in a pause.
That has resulted, of course, in a decrease in the differential between monetary policy rates in Mexico and the U.S. If we can go back just for a second, you can see the green line. That differential has been, of course, declining and is now at low levels. Now if we go to the next one, we think it is warranted to have this lower differential because if we compare that with previous periods, we see that inflation relative to the U.S. and Mexico is lower, that the exchange rate is stronger, the volatility is lower, and in general, country risk indicators are performing better.
Not only that, probably one of the main reasons why a lower differential is warranted is the fact that because of a pension reform in 2020, local capital markets are growing at a very fast pace, and that means that Mexico now is a country that is much less dependent on foreign inflows, and basically the government could even finance its entire, as of next year, debt issuance program within local markets. If we go to next one, please.
This issue of better fundamentals in terms of what's going on with local capital markets, the fact that the government has been ongoing fiscal consolidation program, and the fact that despite all the noise, Mexico appears to be more integrated with the U.S. And that Mexico has had this preferential treatment to export to the U.S., have resulted in that basically all relevant country risk indicators have been improving for Mexico. They had a bad period when the conflict in the Middle East began, but after that, they have been behaving well. If we go to next one, please. Talking about USMCA, first, as you can see on the left-hand side, Mexico and Canada are facing the lower levels of relative protectionism in terms of weighted average tariffs to export to the U.S.
As I was telling you, last year, 82% of Mexican exports to the U.S. were tariff-free because as you know, there's a provision that not taking into account Section 232 tariffs, mainly on autos, steel, and aluminum, whatever goes through USMCA, it goes tariff-free. That is a very big advantage. Not only that, if you see on the right-hand side, the Chinese content on Mexican exports is way lower, for example, to what you see in Vietnam. We think that Mexico is in a good position to gain comparative advantage to export to the U.S., not only vis-a-vis China, but also vis-a-vis other East Asian countries that are facing higher tariffs. Not only that, these are countries that have much larger content of Chinese inputs, and that should result in a better treatment for Mexico. If we go to the next one, please.
Just to mention what's going on with USMCA. As you know, USMCA is set to expire in 2036. Beginning this year there are going to be annual revisions to the agreement. At any point from now until 2036, the agreement can be extended and can be extended for 16 years. A few weeks ago, the U.S., the USTR, announced that they were not going to renew the agreement. That was completely expected. That was our base case scenario. Also the market was expecting that. The day of the announcement, nothing happened with the CDS spread, nothing happened with the exchange rate. The reason is we think that the U.S. will maintain some leverage with the possibility of extending the agreement.
Our base case scenario is that the agreement will go forward. The main reason why we think this is that on this, the U.S. government has been consistent. Last year when the tariffs on Liberation Day were imposed to basically all countries, that's when the U.S. said whatever comes through USMCA will be tariff-free. That was again the case this year when the Supreme Court declared those tariffs illegal. The U.S. used another section of a trade code. Again, there was an exception for USMCA goods. We think that's explained by the fact that there's an acknowledgment in the U.S. that Mexico helps the U.S. to be more competitive through complex value chains, in particular helps the U.S. to be more competitive vis-a-vis China.
Our base case is that we will go on annual revisions. At some point, the agreement will be renewed. As long as we are in this equilibrium, we think it's a positive equilibrium for Mexico where most goods can be exported tariff-free. If we go to next one, just to finish one last section on the financial sector. Just to begin with, we think that there's still scope for credit to increase above GDP growth for several reasons. One is this, that you can see in this chart. The level of credit to GDP in Mexico has not yet recovered the level that it had before the 1994 crisis. It was, as you know, a very significant crisis that resulted in the insolvency of most banks. As a result, bank credit declined for several years, and we're still not there at that level, no?
If we go to next one, please. Not only that, Mexico is well below in terms of credit over GDP. Not only, of course, in comparison to advanced countries, but in comparison with most of its peers. Just a normal process of convergence to have credit penetration similar to other Latin American countries will mean that credit can keep on growing above what the economy is doing. If we go to next one, please. This issue with low credit penetration, that is a result of informality, that was a result of a banking crisis in 1994, has meant that in the last couple of decades, as you can see on the right-hand side, credit to the private sector has been growing significantly above GDP.
We think that now we have some conditions that will allow this to continue to happen, in particular, the fact that we're seeing a digitalization program by the Mexican government. As long as we see this progress in bank penetration, we think this is a banking system that can grow above GDP in the years to come. With that, I will stop the Mexican section. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Carlos. Let's now turn to Türkiye. Seda, please, floor is yours.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Laura, Patricia, and the team. Okay, thank you, everyone. I will start with the general perspective that we basically keep as an assumption to understand the cyclical part of the story. We are now in the third year of this inflation program, but if you remember the approach, we see the political preference remains to be taking the path for just a moderation in the GDP growth rates. As you see, we see still about 3% growth rates compared to the potential of 4%, 4.5% according to our estimates. That has been the choice. Compared to the previous years, that moderation has also been in the domestic demand composition, but the trade-off has been to keep the growth rates at just modest levels. As you see, the sacrifice ratio remains to be too low.
We continue to see the revisions in the Central Bank projections because in the beginning, we were observing very deep negative output gaps in the inflation report presentations. Later, in every report, there had been the upward revisions. At the end of the day, we see this is a repetition of the situation that the sensitivity remains to be seen over the GDP growth rates. Of course, this year we have another external shock. Given the uncertainties and the low growth rates, especially from the European side, of course, we have the lower growth forecast for this year as 3%. Given the very fast decline in the oil prices just after the efforts for the ceasefire and plus the dovishness of the Central Bank, we can see maybe slightly above 3% growth rate this year. Again, the story is not changing.
The sensitivity is staying there to keep that as a benchmark, especially for the economy policy mix. In the next slides, since this has been the choice, disinflation is continuing, but the process is also gradually happening. As of June, the year-over-year CPI had reached 32%, and we forecast 30% inflation for the end of this year. Of course, we have a slight limited downward bias for the end of this year, which could be maybe around 29% given the fast decline in the oil prices, but it is still high. If you remember, the real appreciation of the currency has been the main anchor to keep this disinflation process on track. We think maybe that gap has already closed. If you take, for example, the PPI-adjusted effective exchange rate adjustment, you see that convergence has already happened.
We see the stickiness over the headline CPI trend. Yes, it is again converging towards 2% monthly trend. If you check the previous episode, I mean one half year, it has been hovering above 2%. The stickiness is continuing, but the good point is the commitment to keep the program alive is still there. I didn't mention about it, but our main assumption is having an early election later next year, not a sooner election, so that commitment could still be alive and we can see a further gain over the inflation outlook before reaching the election cycle. At the end of the day, again, if we come back to the previous slides, there will be the need to keep the real rates high in order to have that anchor over the currency to keep that disinflation process on track.
In the next slides, if we continue with that, we need to think about the broader picture over the monetary stance. It's not just the policy rate with that 5%-6% point real rates. We need to think about the mix of both the credit rules and the deposit rules in the banking sector. On the left-hand side, you see how the Turkish deposit rates are hovering above the Central Bank cost of funding, which has been again, the other strategy of the Central Bank to keep dollarization under control below 40% levels you will see in the next slides. On the other hand, the Central Bank is also managing the credit growth in order to keep it below the inflation trend. Lately, they restricted further the monthly growth caps, and they also narrowed the incentives and the exceptions over the rules.
Right now, the control is further restrictive, and this is making the monetary stance more restrictive than the policy rate is implying. This could be, again, the strategy going forward ahead of the election, according to our view. In the next slide. With that, with this background, we see increasing demand for the Turkish lira assets. Of course, the Central Bank's motivation to keep the managed currency. You see there has been a calibration, but it is just a calibration according to the new inflation path, new inflation target. The story has not changed. With that, we again see increasing demand for Turkish lira assets, particularly for the Turkish lira swaps.
Again, you see the fast decline in the offshore Turkish lira rates, and the market has also become relatively more dovish after the Central Bank communication. Of course, this week we have seen a slight uptick in the oil prices. We now question whether next week's MPC could be the starting point for the normalization towards the policy rate. Maybe there could be a few weeks delay compared to what we had talked before. In any case, the perspective, the motivation is there to find a way to start the easing and the cost of funding as soon as possible. Of course, this is conditional to the inflation outlook and, of course, the financial stability regarding the dollarization tendency of the residents. In the next slide. In that perspective, if I start with the residents part on the right-hand side, you see the dollarization stays under control.
This is again the main pillar of the general story that I'm trying to explain. Of course, we are closely watching the foreign currency flows, how the foreigners are behaving, how the residents are reacting. On that front, you see the foreigners increasing again exposure. During March, the outflow was significant, later, as of the start of maybe April, around $25 billion came back till the start of July. Again, the exposure is very short-term. We see again a higher inflow towards the carry trade. Other than that, we also see inflows into Eurobonds and also the equity market. These are the good news, of course, to see. As long as the managed currency is there with the guaranteed gain, we see this flow to continue to support the residents, again, motivation to stay in Turkish lira assets.
This is a circle that we need to check. In the next slide. This is of course particularly important for the Central Bank reserves. We understand the Central Bank wants to keep the reserves as strong as possible. Of course, the higher share of gold is an important pillar to check, but they show themselves that they can be able to use the gold swaps if something happens to support the foreign currency liquidity in the market. If we check the high quality liquid foreign assets, it's also improving towards $40 billion. Today we had the additional week data, and it has improved above $40 billion in terms of that high-quality liquid foreign assets. Things are improving in terms of the flows. As of June, as you see in the middle of the charts, the inflows to the Central Bank reserves have been the case.
Finally, as of the end of last week, the gross amount, the gross reserves has reached above $160 billion. We understand this will be the main, again, anchor for the Central Bank to keep that story, as I tried to explain in the previous slide, on track. In the next slide, we were also questioning whether the tourism season could be one of the factors that we can see a threat, but it's not happening. We are closely watching our big data, our POS machines transactions of the foreigners to understand how their spending is changing on a daily basis. As of June, we realized a similar level compared to last year. If we make a forecast for the high season for the third quarter, you see relatively a stable outlook for this quarter.
It means maybe this year's tourism revenue target could be achievable. This is, of course, a strong buffer, which is also confirmed by the Central Bank reserves as I tried to show in the previous slide. This is also supporting the activity. We now cast, for example, as of June, close to 2.5% year-over-year growth, which is very similar to what we had seen in the first quarter. In the first half, the growth will reach 2.5% year-over-year. We, of course, expect a slight recovery in the second half, which we finally reach 3% on average for this year. We are also closely watching how the external balance is reacting because this is particularly important, again, for the Central Bank reserves and the motivation for both the foreigners' and the residents' motivation for the Turkish lira savings.
On that front, risks are calming down with the decline, with the ceasefire negotiations, with the decline in oil prices. This is still a delicate balance of risks. We need to closely watch how the flows are happening. Regarding the financing, we do not see any risk. This is one thing to highlight. We continuously see above 100% rollover ratios, a higher demand for the treasuries, external borrowings. Things are relatively fine in terms of the financing story. In the next slide. On the fiscal front, this is, of course, again, important to understand the policy mix. We think ahead of the next election, monetary policy will stay as the guard to the system, but we can see maybe some selective easing over the fiscal policy and income policies.
Before that, of course, the current performance is important to understand the room available. We see relatively good performance in the revenues. Of course, the tax collection shifts because of the time, the calendar effects, and again, shifts in the collection time compared to last year had affected the revenue performance year-over-year. In terms of the trend, we do not see a much worse outlook as we observed in the first quarter of the year. In terms of the non-trust spending, you see a controlled manner, which is moving parallel to the inflation. You see finally the primary cash balance, it is still above zero. We still generate surplus in the primary balance, which is good to say. It seems since last year's April, the fiscal stance has been relatively restrictive.
As of this year, we see relatively a stable outlook, but we are closely watching the non-trust spending manner. They are trying to keep it under control. Finally, on the employment outlook, the headline unemployment rate is hovering around 8%, which is historically low. Of course, it doesn't mean the labor market is too tight. Instead, if we think about the broader picture, the underutilization rate is above 30%, which is showing that the impact from the moderation in growth rates have been seen. Of course, the headline figure is politically sensitive, and it seems it is relatively low, and this is basically keeping that commitment there with the program. It's all from my side. I can stop here.
Okay. Thank you very much, Seda. Thank you, Jorge, and the whole team for your presentation and insightful perspectives on the different markets. We are ready to move now on to the Q and A session. I don't know if there is any question online. Operator, please, the first question.
Thank you. We will now start today's Q and A session. If you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw your question, it's star followed by two. Our first question today comes from Marta Sanchez Romero from JPMorgan. Your line's now open. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. I've got two on Spain. The first one, if you could share with us in your view the two, three most urgent key policy changes we need to see in Spain, what the likelihood, if a new government and parliament manage to get a working majority, that we may have them. The second question is how worried we should be about the growth that we've seen low-income households taking more leverage. How vulnerable could the balance sheet of banks be to a change in cycle, given how the speed of growth that we've seen in the past few years from this segment that is more vulnerable to a turn in the cycle. Thank you.
Miguel?
Thank you for your questions. Regarding the two or three key policy changes, obviously there are lots of challenges for Spain, currently, the housing problem is something that will, if not resolved relatively quickly, it could affect not only the macroeconomic outlook, consumption by households, but also it could be a bottleneck for attracting human capital. There is a land development law proposal that needs to gather consensus in order to unlock home building and therefore to tackle this very important issue as prices are increasing and are, again, having a negative impact on expenditure and on the perception of households regarding the current recovery. Second, I would mention anything that would try to unlock also and try to foster investment in the renewable sector.
The distribution of electricity, the network is overcrowded, we need further investment there in order for all this investment that has already been done to really push prices down and to reap the benefits of all the effort that has been done in order to transform the energy metrics in Spain. Finally, I would say one of the key challenges going forward is going to be how to reduce the relatively high structural fiscal deficit that the Spanish government has. Right now, it's somewhere around 3% of GDP, a little above that. With the current challenges that we have or the future challenges that we're going to have in terms of health expenditure, in terms of pension expenditure, this is one of the things that the next government should tackle and tackle relatively soon going forward.
Obviously, there are some long-term reforms that should also accompany this, like improving education specifically for the unemployed and to improve the education also for the immigrants for them to reach the same kind of human capital that domestic residents have. I would say those are the three most important reforms ahead of the next government. In terms of leverage, one of the things that we're seeing is that actually what we keep seeing is that credit in terms of GDP for households is relatively below what we see in the rest of the Eurozone. We are not seeing any negative signal, for example, in non-performing loans. In fact, it keeps going down. At least for the moment, it doesn't seem to be a problem, this incipient growth that we're seeing in terms of credit.
Thank you very much, Marta. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research. Your line is now open. Please proceed.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got three, please, two on Mexico and one on Türkiye. With regards to Mexico, what is your view on the productive capacity in Mexico and the risk of replacing it within the U.S., or do you have a view on how Mexico can move products higher up the value chain? The second one would be whether you've quantified the impact of uncertainty and the lack of planning ability around the USMCA annual revision process in terms of GDP growth. Then on Türkiye, in your view, what would need to happen to derail the normalization path? What are the largest realistic risks to the current situation? Thank you.
Thank you. Can you please take the first two, Carlos, and then Seda?
Absolutely. Yes. Well, on the issue of productive capacity, I would mention that the probably main bottleneck in this issue is in terms of energy. We have been talking with our clients in their industrial parks, and they say that the main reason why they are not building more parks is that they do not have enough supply of electricity at competitive prices. On that aspect, I think the announcement that I was mentioning of private participation to develop electricity generation, I think is quite positive. Apart from that, I will mention that in terms of productive capacity of firms, you still have some spare capacity. That means firms can increase production without building more plants. We still have some room over there. Again, I think the main issues in Mexico, more than with the capacity of firms, are more with infrastructure, in particular energy.
On your second point, on the uncertainty around USMCA, not only we think our impression by talking with clients is that that has not been a significant source of uncertainty because as I was saying, despite the fact that we have these review processes, all the signals that are coming is that USMCA will go forward. It's true that the negotiations are going to be complex. It's true that some things are going to be changed, there have been no signals that USMCA will not go forward. It's true that it's not going to be renewed soon, as long as we continue on the existing equilibrium, that's a positive equilibrium. Again, no one, I think, expected that the agreement was going to be renewed. I think that local uncertainty is a more binding constraint.
Again, firms are waiting to see how the new judiciary is going to operate. We think that that has played a more significant factor explaining the decline in investment than USMCA uncertainty. In fact, you can see if you see a time series, investment began to decline when the judicial reform was announced well before the uncertainty on trades came. In fact, there was not an inflection point when trade uncertainty began. I think domestic reasons, domestic uncertainty is playing a larger role. I will stop it there, Jorge.
Seda, please.
Okay. Let me continue with the question. We do not see that kind of motivation from the ruling alliance from the president so far. Of course, if the question is about a preparation for the next election cycle, yes, we assume that kind of preparation. It seems as they also communicate that way, they want to make it as a selective way, a targeted approach to introduce that kind of populist measures. We also understand the path that we go to the election cycle will generate different tactics, and we already started to see that kind of tactics on the political front. If this is the case, the economic outlook, the economic policy mix should be keeping the guard for the system to sustain the regime.
In our view, that kind of commitment will be needed, and I understand our president also sees the picture that way. So far, we see the full commitment, the full support for the program for Şimşek management. Of course, there might be some pressure over the Central Bank reserves as we get closer to the time of the election. Of course, we don't know about the time of the election, but it seems we are getting closer to that, but it will not be that soon. Even though it is the case, even though we see that pressure is growing as we saw in the last two years, the current team, the current economy team is ready to tighten the policy further in order to provide, again, that financial stability to the system. We do not assume that kind of unorthodox policies attached to the picture.
Instead, we can see some selective easing in a targeted way, and the commitment will still be there.
Yeah. Thanks so much. Just one comment on the Mexican issue. If should you be interested in our website, we do follow in real time indicators of the geopolitical nature. We have economic policy uncertainty, trade uncertainty. What you see in Mexico, going to your question, is that although economic policy uncertainty typically goes between minus one and one, which means that it's within the normal range, but it has been increasing. In trade policy uncertainty, it has been decreasing and is very close to minus one. Kind of showing or supporting what Carlos is saying and also pointing to you something that you can look at if you're interested. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Britta, for your questions. Next question, please.
Our next question comes from Hugo Cruz from KBW. Your line is now open. Please proceed.
Hi, thank you for the time. I have four questions if I may. First of all, in Spain, I think there have been some government measures to mitigate the impact of the higher oil prices in GDP. Could you quantify that? Have they been material? If you could quantify what's been the impact on GDP and in government measure expenditures. Second question, Spain, the next elections probably will have a more right-wing government. Do you think that could lead to a change in immigration trends? The third question on Spain, where do you see the bottom in unemployment rate? Italy now I think has a five handle. Do you think Spain could ever go down towards such low unemployment rates as that?
You didn't talk about some of your other geographies, but I wonder if you could briefly talk about how you see the Colombian and Argentinian economies going forward. Thank you.
Thank you. Miguel, please.
Sure. Regarding the government measures, the first number that they gave was of around EUR 5 billion, but the update that they gave when they announced that they were ending those measures was somewhere around EUR 3.5 billion-EUR 4 billion. Some of the measures are going to remain and could come back if the scenario worsens. What we think is that the final bill is going to be between EUR 4 billion-EUR 5 billion. That's going to be somewhere around 0.2%-0.3% of GDP. Certainly, it could be one of the reasons why we are not seeing more of a slowdown in GDP over the second quarter. Almost for sure, it also explains why we are not seeing more inflation.
Inflation surprised to the downside in June. It was not only headline inflation, core inflation, and if you go and see industrial goods or food items, processed foods, there are no signs that the shock has been transferred to prices, and it can be as a result of the measures that the government introduced. That's 0.2%-0.3% of GDP. Immigration trends, we're not seeing any changes right now. The trend is for probably to have the foreign population to increase by around 300,000-400,000 this year, relatively in line with what we are seeing in the last couple of years, and relatively in line with the increase that we are expecting for the active population and a little below job creation. What a new government can bring when they announce which measures they implement, then we evaluate.
At this point in time, what we are seeing, we are not seeing neither an acceleration nor the slowdown. We are seeing that the trends continue relatively at that pace. Bottoming of the unemployment rate. What we have is the unemployment bottoming around just below 10%. How much the unemployment rate is going to go down will depend on how the active population is going to follow. On average, what we have is unemployment rate of 9.9% this year, 9.6% next year, with increases of the active population, as I said, between 350,000- 450,000 persons per year. It is not going to go further down as long as immigration remains relatively strong. If immigration slows down, but the supply of jobs keeps increasing, then we could have a stronger decrease in the unemployment rate.
For the time being, what we are seeing in terms of immigration, what we are seeing also, the attraction, the increase in labor participation by residents in Spain is relatively strong. In terms of the unemployment rate, we do not see it going further than 9%.
I will take the questions on Colombia and Argentina. Colombia is a country that was facing significant challenges, mainly related to a significant increase in inflation that needed a very strong reaction by the Central Bank, but also by important fiscal challenges because they have not been following the fiscal rule. Let us say that the political decisions taken by the government did not help much. The Central Bank felt under pressure due to dramatic increases in minimum wage at a time where productivity was not increasing, fiscal expenditure was very high. In this context, the victory of de la Espriella , at least it has taken away dramatically the pressure on the Central Bank, that now feels that has more room of maneuver to follow whatever policies they need to bring inflation down. In that regard, the outlook is relatively benign.
We are expecting that growth is going to decelerate mildly. We have it at 2.6 this year. We will go down to 2.1 in 2027. With those monetary policy decisions that we expect, the interest rates are going to continue increasing, and they are going to remain high in the foreseeable future. Inflation is likely to go down to levels slightly below 6% in 2027. Still, it is a country that has fiscal challenges. We are still waiting to see which are the decisions that are taking in that realm. On Argentina, they have been very consistently following a path in which the sustained fiscal consolidation is the main anchor of the system.
That is the element through which other policies rotate around. That means they're following a view of monetary aggregates and the buildup of reserves, which in turn allow them to keep a real appreciation of the exchange rate that also helps contain inflation. It is very likely that growth can stay at levels around 3% this year and next. Inflation is likely to go slightly below 30% this year, and between 15%-20%, I think we have it at 18% in 2027. The main challenge in Argentina is how they match the two-tier economy that they have, where there is a huge growth in sectors that are related to primary and service sectors, while the sectors in which there are more people employed, which are manufacturing, are suffering for a variety of things, including the real appreciation.
Not only, there is other issues that are playing a significant role. Still, I think that the chances that these policies can continue throughout the next government have been increasing. In that regard, they are likely to have the time to finalize this process of normalization in which Argentina is now engaged.
Thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. I think there is another question in line. Operator, please.
Our next question is the last question, a follow-up from Britta Schmidt from Autonomous Research. Your line's now open. Please proceed.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. Back to Mexico, do you have any views on Claudia's policies regarding digitalization of the economy? We've seen other countries, especially Brazil, make significant progress here. What impact on longer-term growth do you think stronger financial inclusion could trigger? Thank you.
Carlos, please.
We have been following closely Claudia's digitalization process, not only following closely, we have been in close contact with her team to advance that agenda. I will tell you, overall, we are quite positive about this agenda. We think this is the first time in decades that we see a serious effort on this front. As you know, Claudia appointed a very close person to lead this effort, so there's an agency for digitalization. We have been working closely with them. Among other things, for example, they just announced some weeks ago that they're going to start with a program where payment in cash at gas stations and toll roads are going to be forbidden. Now, everything has to be digital payments on those fronts. We think that will create the incentives for people to open banking accounts and to use more digitalization.
Just the fact that you're not going to be able to buy gas without cash, that should be important. Just the signal that President Claudia is going to take this measure to forbid these cash payments, I think is very strong. Not only that, they have been changing financial regulation to make it way easier to open completely digital banking accounts. We think that, again, we're quite positive about these efforts, one of the main reasons why we think that credit to individuals will keep on outpacing GDP is this one, because we think that the digitalization, one of the main consequences is going to be a further increase in banking penetration, which, as you know, has way to go in Mexico, because it's quite low compared with its peers.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Carlos. There are no more questions in the queue currently. Let me turn now to a couple of questions that have been submitted through the platform. We have a question from Joshua Studholme from Egerton Capital. He is asking about how the Mexican GDP downgrade impacts our views on credit growth in the Mexican economy this year. Also related to trade growth in Mexico, Isabel Di Tella , also from Egerton, is asking about the dynamics that we should be thinking about in individual versus corporate lending in Mexico over the next year.
Carlos?
Yes, Carlos, please.
Sure. Okay, Patricia. I will tackle both. They are quite similar, and they are complementary questions. I will tackle them together. Yes, we think that credit will decelerate this year as a result of this deceleration in GDP. We think that overall, credit in the system, and again, what we follow in research is credit at the system level. We don't know the particulars of the bank or any other institution. According to our models, we think credit this year overall will decelerate and will grow at levels of around 5%-6%. Now, there's a big difference on what's going on between corporates and individuals. Individuals, we think credit will continue to be quite resilient. We think it will grow at double digits, something close to 10%. First, because we are seeing some recovery in job creation.
Second, because as you know, the real wage mass has been growing at very significant paces over the last four years, so that means more demand for credit. On the other hand, we think credit for corporate will decelerate to 4%, which is quite low. Not long ago, this was growing at double digits, and the main reason is this decline in investment. The fact that we're seeing lower CapEx means lower demand for credit. We're still seeing demand for credit for working capital, and now that rates have been declining, we are seeing a lot of refinancing activity. But overall, yes, lower credit for corporates. We're expecting in 2027 to see a recovery as we are forecasting a higher GDP growth. We, and in general, the IMF, and the consensus.
We think that we can see credit to corporates recovering to 6% or 7% in 2027 and credit to individuals growing at 11% or 12% in 2027. We are seeing quite different dynamics between credit to individuals and corporates.
Thank you very much, Carlos. A final question from Francisco Riquel from Alantra. It is also related to how our macro scenario translates into loan growth expectations for the sector in the case of Spain, Mexico, and Türkiye. We have already tackled Mexico. Perhaps we can answer or share our views for loan growth at the system level in Spain and Türkiye.
Let's start with Spain.
Yeah. Thank you for your question. What we are seeing is the end of 2025 ended with two digit growth in consumption and credit for consumption purposes in Spain. We think that along with the relative slowdown that we are seeing in Spain, what we should see is also a relatively more moderate growth over the next couple of years in consumption credit. More towards what you would get along the nominal GDP growth over the next couple of years. Regarding mortgage growth, what we are seeing is growth around 4%, and we think that it should stay along those lines over the next couple of years.
Basically supported by this strong demand that we are still seeing on home purchases and the relatively high price that right now people are facing on the rental market, and as I said, relatively favorable conditions for households to take advantage of credit growth. Regarding credit to firms, what we are seeing right now is that growth remains around 3%, and we are expecting it to remain along those lines, credit growth to firms. Nonetheless, there is an upward bias on credit, specifically towards the construction sector and specifically real estate sector, as we think that there is going to be a strong push over the next couple of years to try to increase the supply of housing. That should support the sector towards asking for more credit. There we should see higher credit growth.
Seda, you may also want to touch, when answering these questions, the caps in place limiting credit growth and how that might affect whatever we say as the authorities are active on that front.
Yes. Of course, the caps are binding in the case of Türkiye. If I think about the Turkish lira and the foreign currency components, in the case of the Turkish lira component, I would say maybe parallel to inflation this year, we can see a figure. For the foreign currency lending, it could be low single digits year-over-year. In the case of course, next year, things could have started to change as I tried to explain, as we get closer to the election cycle. Even though we assume those caps will still be important, they can start easing a little bit, maybe starting from the semi Turkish lira lending. We can see in total terms, a real year-over-year growth rate next year with those easing items selectively. This year it is relatively more restrictive.
Next year, we can see that kind of selective easing. We think the commercial lending, particularly SME Turkish lira lending, could be the items that we can see that easing bias. In terms of individual lending, the retail lending, we think those caps will still be there in order not to generate any risk, especially for dollarization motivation.
Thank you. Thank you very much. This was the last question. Thank you very much to the BBVA Research team. Thank you all of you for joining us today. We appreciate your participation. We look forward to seeing you at our Q2 results presentation. Have a great afternoon. Thank you.
Thank you.