Spain Almost Doubles Corporate Debt Issuance Amid Eurozone Periphery Revival

Spain has almost doubled its corporate debt issuance amid a surge of appetite among investors hungry to snap up company debt from peripheral eurozone countries.

According to a report from Fitch Ratings, Spanish companies have seen a 45% jump in their debt issuance in 2013.

Meanwhile, other countries rocked by the European sovereign debt crisis such as Greece, Ireland, Italy and Portugal saw bond issuance increase by 22% over the same period.

However, Italy saw its corporate issuance fall by 9%.

Thing are looking better for the Spanish economy: January saw the country's treasury announcing it will issue €242bn ($332.1bn, £199.1bn) of debt in 2014 to service budget deficits and government spending.

Spain's government predicts 2014 will see a turnaround in the country's job market.

Economy Minister Luis de Guindos shared the positive prediction during an interview on one of Spain's national radio stations, Cadena Ser in January this year.

"2014 will see the net creation of jobs, higher even than we predicted in September in the budget, and the jobless rate will fall," he said.

Guindos also said the economic recovery would take root thanks to an expected tax reform which would look to reverse a personal income tax rise implemented when the government came to power in 2011, and cut corporate taxes while reducing corporate tax deductions.

Despite Spain exiting recession in the third financial quarter of last year, the country still faces a staggeringly high predicted unemployment rate.

The last unemployment figures from Spain showed that the high unemployment rate inched up to 26.03% in the fourth financial quarter of 2013.