At BBVA Annual General Meeting, Carlos Torres Vila took stock of last year and unveiled a new objective in the bank´s fight against climate change. “Today, we are announcing BBVA’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. With this commitment, we are moving the baseline scenario in the Paris Agreement forward by 20 years," he said.

Spain’s GDP fell 10.8 percent in 2020 (practically in line with BBVA Research’s prediction of 11 percent) and could grow 5.5 percent in 2021 and seven percent in 2022, according to the latest report Spain Economic Outlook by BBVA Research. It was presented on Thursday by Jorge Sicilia, Director of BBVA Research and Chief Economist at BBVA; Rafael Doménech, the Head of Economic Analysis; and Miguel Cardoso, Chief Economist for Spain. Nevertheless, if the spread of COVID-19 continues to be limited and the government’s vaccination plans move ahead, the research service feels that there could be an upward bias for these forecasts.

According to the latest economic analysis from the BBVA Research team, February’s unemployment figures confirm that labor market conditions continue to improve as COVID-19 cases slow down, vaccination rates rise and restrictions are lifted in some parts of the U.S.

BBVA Research published its January auto sales chartbook, noting vehicle sales went up 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020. Sales for the year declined 14.7 percent to 14.5 million units, the lowest since 2012.

Following the release of 4Q20 earnings, BBVA chairman Carlos Torres Vila said on Friday that BBVA’s “excess capital opens the door for extraordinary distributions for our shareholders.” In this sense, he mentioned that the bank “is targeting a buyback of about 10 percent of the Group’s shares, following the closing off the sale of the U.S. subsidiary.”

Carlos Torres Vila, Chairman: