A year after the failure of the candidacy for independence, the solid Catalan economy


Published on:

Catalonia has enjoyed solid growth since the region’s failed bid to secede from Spain last year, despite predictions that the uncertainty over the separatist push would take a heavy toll.

Companies feared the worst when the Catalan parliament declared independence last October, triggering Spain’s worst political crisis in four decades.

But the region’s economy, which accounts for about a fifth of Spain’s economic output, grew 3.1% in the second quarter of 2018, outpacing Spain as a whole which grew 2.5% .

It has been buoyed by the lure of its capital Barcelona, ​​although a few clouds remain on the horizon.

Last year’s attempted secession caused a “confidence shock” and a drop in consumption in October, Josep Oliver Alonso, an economist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, ​​told AFP.

Some 3,700 companies moved their headquarters from Catalonia to other parts of Spain between October 2017 and July 2018, including heavyweights such as Catalan lender Caixabank, according to Catalan government figures.

But the political crisis has not dampened two of the main drivers of the Catalan economy: tourism and exports.

Tourism, which accounts for 12% of Catalonia’s economic output, suffered a 5.0% drop in visitor numbers in October 2017 compared to the same period a year earlier, the images of massive street protests keeping tourists away.

But the sector “recovered” in 2018 as “political debates take place where they should take place: in parliament” and not in the streets, said Manel Casals, the general manager of the Barcelona hoteliers association. , although he added “some opportunities were lost”. “.

Marta Angerri, director of the powerful Catalan business lobby Circulo de Economia, said it was not yet possible to calculate “how many opportunities have been missed and what investments have not been made” due to the crisis of secession.

Foreign direct investment fell 41% in the second quarter, but analysts say this statistic typically varies widely, so the figure should be taken with caution.

– ‘Talent network’ –

Job creation is another weak point.

The number of new workers who registered with the social security system increased by 2.5% in Catalonia in September compared to the previous year, below the 2.9% increase recorded during the same period throughout Spain, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Spanish bank BBVA. .

The lender blamed “multiple extraordinary events” in Catalonia in 2017 for the slowing pace of job creation, from a deadly Islamist attack in August to the separatist crisis.

Despite lingering political tensions, Catalonia has been home to major multinationals like Amazon, which opened a new center in Catalonia in April and plans to open a machine learning research hub in the region.

Amazon makes its decisions “based on business, not political criteria,” a company spokesperson told AFP.

Britain’s King Digital Entertainment, which makes games for social media websites including the popular Candy Crush Saga, has three studios in Barcelona and said the coastal city is “ideal for technology and there’s room to expand and grow”.

The Catalan capital has a “talent pool” thanks to its “beautiful network of universities”, adds Marco Bressan of the Argentinian data analysis start-up Satellogic, which has expanded the office it has over the past year. opened in Barcelona in May 2017, its first in Europe.

The quality of life in the Mediterranean city makes it “very easy to convince someone from another country to come and live” in Barcelona, ​​Bressan said.

The company’s Barcelona office had five employees on October 1, 2017 when Catalonia held a banned independence referendum. Now he has 20.

– ‘Dual agenda’ –

Alonso said that these investments show that foreign companies do not believe that there will be a process of independence in the short term with “traumatic” consequences, such as the exit of Catalonia from the European Union or the abandonment of the single euro currency.

Nevertheless, separatist parties remain in power in Catalonia and they seem more focused on achieving self-determination than on economic policy.

Catalan President Quim Torra disappointed entrepreneurs when he skipped a summit in September over a planned new railway for Spain’s Mediterranean coastline that Catalan businesses have long clamored for.

“We have a double agenda,” said Albert Puig, economic adviser to the Catalan regional government.

“A large agenda for future themes” such as self-determination and “a smaller one, for everyday affairs” such as the economy, he added.

“And we do,” said Puig.

He pointed out that the Catalan government spent 213 million euros ($244 million) in the first half of 2018 to help 746 businesses, mostly small and medium-sized ones.

Previous The war in Ukraine “has an impact” on the British economy but “a price to pay” | World | New
Next Iberia is preparing to offer full service for the winter timetable