Brave green shoots from Ireland, Spain

We couldn’t help but notice some sparkles of life among Friday’s gloom and readily pass them on to our most optimist readers. Here’s one from Bankinter analysts:

“Ireland’s 2Q GDP has been unexpectedly good: +2.3% vs. +0.4% and a 1Q revised up from +0.1% up to +0.3%. With this growth pace, default is much less likely. We argue that the Irish situation is perfectly reversible, as it was not due to a structural problem of the economy but rather to its banking system.”

And here’s one more, which, although perfectly foreseeable, deserves a warm welcome to the list of ‘rare reasons to smile’ that we are more than willing to write down day after day in this humble corner of good will. Spain’s tourism industry holds its capability of attracting holidaymakers from all corners, not just this one. From the newspaper La Vanguardia‘s pages:

“Spain received 7.64 million foreign tourists in August, representing a 9.4% increase over the same month in 2010 and marks a historical monthly high. So far this year, Spain has registered almost 40m visitors, an 8% increase. The tourist movement survey (FRONTUR), which began to be elaborated in 1995, shows that all regions recorded upshots in tourist arrivals, especially Madrid, which received 42.6% more foreign visitors because of the World Youth Day event.

“The Ministry of Industry, which compiles the survey, said August data ‘strengthens the positive outlook’ for 2011, which could become ‘the fourth best year ever for tourism in Spain’ after the recovery started in the second half of 2010.”