Heavy investment last year by Spanish companies ref-lected broader confidence in the eurozone among exporters, according to finance minister Pedro Solbes, and would help offset a "gentle slowdown" in domesticconstruction.

"The most important statistic we have at the mom-ent is a 9.7 per cent rise in 2006 in investment in capital equipment," he said yesterday. "In the last quarter the year-on-year rise was 11.4 per cent. This says to me that Span-ish companies are thinking of increasing capacity and producing more, which has to be good news."