John W. Snow, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and chairman of Capital Management Group, noted that Spain has finally climbed out of some of its economic turmoil – but there’s still much work to be done in the future.

“I take my hat off to Spain. You were serious about confronting your (economic) problems. And you didn’t have the advantage which the United States and U.K. had,” Snow explained during the June 2015 Spain Economic Forum, held in New York. 

Snow said that the government also shored up struggling banks exposed to Spain’s depressed domestic construction and real estate sectors by successfully completing an EU-funded restructuring and recapitalization program in December 2013.

Arguing that Spain’s government projected the economy would grow at the same rate over the next three years, creating an estimated 2 million jobs by 2018 to cut the unemployment rate to about 15 percent, Snow said, “Productivity is up and the growth numbers are up.”

Indeed, Spain has taken a turn for the better. Spain's economy increased at close to 4 percent in the first half of 2015, putting it on course to return to pre-crisis levels of output by the end of next year, as Minister of Economy and Finance, Luis de Guindos, noted.

In fact, gross domestic product dropped around 8 percent between the first quarter of 2008 and the second quarter of 2013, when it began rising from a long downturn, and the level of that revitalization will be pivotal in November's national elections.

De Guindos said that he anticipated the economy to register a higher growth rate in the three months from April to June than the 0.9 percent of the first quarter.

“This means that in the first half of this year, the economy will have grown close to 4 percent,” De Guindos said, referring to the annualized rate. “Since mid-2013, and until the second quarter, we have recovered almost 4.5 percentage points of gross domestic product contraction – and by the end of next year, if things stay as they are, we will have recovered the income lost since the crisis started.”

Former Treasury Secretary Snow gave a prescient warning about the economy of Spain. “It's never too good declaring victory too soon,” Snow said. “First you get growth and then you get jobs.”

In other economic news, Greece has overlooked a crucial debt payment to the International Monetary Fund, deepening an economic crisis that has been troubling world leaders and financial markets for a while.

In early July, Greece has appeared as the weak link in the euro zone.  Greece officially owes 242.8 billion by July 7 to the IMF.  Meanwhile, Puerto Rico is in also in severe crisis, weighed down by $73 billion in debt, even as unemployment hits 14 percent.