The macroeconomic context in 2016 also revealed promising positive gures, with a growth in GDP of 3.2%, a growth in the import of capital goods of 4.1% and a purchasing managers index (PMI) of 54.9, an excellent indicator of the situation and direction of the Spanish economy. Machine tool imports rose 16.4 % last year amounting to 496 million Euros. Obviously the gures reached before the recession have not yet been reached (the demand for machine tools is still 40% lower than it was in the years prior to the recession), but there is a clear improvement in the import of machine tools. Most of the machinery was imported from Germany (100 million Euros), Italy (83 million), Japan (61 million), Belgium (43 million), Taiwan (35 million) or Switzerland (25 million). As regards the main client-sectors to which the imports were destined, according to the gures provided by the members of AIMHE, the auto- motive industry is at the fore (approx. 37%), followed by moulds and dies (18.9%) and aero- nautics and aerospatial (15.3%). The principal regional communities that impor- ted machine tools were the Basque Country at 31.9%, Catalonia at 28.5% and the Community of Madrid at 11.6%. In turn, the forecasts for 2017 are optimistic, based on the gures for the import of capital goods for January and February, although the gures for February indicate a decline in the domestic sale of capital goods. Furthermore, the GDP for the rst quarter of this year has risen by 0.8% with respect to the previous quarter in 2016, with a recovery of the business con dence index. Notwithstanding today's climate of optimism, it is important that the different public administra- tions continue to promote business investment in the renewal of capital goods, to enable com- panies to continue to be competitive and to successfully address the challenges presented by Industry 4.0. • The forecasts for 2017 are optimistic, based on the gures for the import of capital goods for January and February Distribution by sector Distribution by regions >>11 SECTOR DATA