Business

Catalan exports to Cuba grew by 50% in 2015, reaching €294 million. With this in mind, the Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, and the director of the centre for the promotion of foreign trade ProCuba, Roberto Verrier, signed on Thursday in Havana an agreement that seeks to strengthen trade relations. ProCuba, under the Cuban Ministry for Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, works to promote the internationalisation of the industry of the country. According to the agreement, Cuba will now provide Catalonia with information on the investment opportunities in the region in order to promote the arrival of new Catalan businesses to the island. Baiget, who is participating in a trade mission to Panama and Cuba organised by the Port of Barcelona and Acció, the Catalan Public competitiveness and internationalisation agency, stated that the measure was “really important”. It implies “direct capacity for dialogue” with the Cuban body responsible for foreign investment, he added.

Barcelona and Seoul will be connected through three direct flights per week from the 28th of April 2017. The Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, announced this Wednesday that next year Korean Air, the largest airline in South Korea, will operate three flights - on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - with capacity for 248 passengers each. The company currently operates flights to 129 destinations in 46 countries and in 2015 registered around 25 million passengers. Baiget detailed that the negotiation process to achieve an agreement started two years ago, on a trade mission and institutional trip of the Catalan Government to South Korea, and explained that the airline will extend the frequency to four days in the future “if things work well”.  

The Catalan Ministry for Economy and Tax Office presented this Wednesday the data of the macroeconomic chart to be included in the budget for 2017, which the Catalan executive expects to pass next week.  According to this document, the Catalan economy’s expected growth will be 3.4%, 0.5% more than the growth forecast for the Spanish economy, which is expected to be 2.9%. Regarding 2017, the chart keeps the figure released last May which foresaw 2.7% growth. According to the Catalan Vice-president and Minister for Economy and Tax Office, Oriol Junqueras, this figure is “considerably higher” than the expected growth for the Eurozone (1.5%). The budget for 2017 also foresees the creation of 160,000 jobs between 2016 and 2017. 

Catalonia and Japan have renewed their business, cultural, touristic and research ties for the next three years, through the so-called ‘Japan Plan 2016-2019’. The Government presented the agreement, approved last 25^th of October, on Monday and explained that it aims at boosting business promotion, investment attraction, tourism cooperation, student mobility and cultural and gastronomic exchange. While the presentation of the Plan was taking place on Monday morning in Barcelona, a mission organised by the Port of Barcelona and Acció, the Catalan Public competitiveness and internationalisation agency, was in Panama trying to improve the trade relationship with the Central America region. The Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, and the Catalan Minister for Planning and Sustainability, Josep Rull, accompanied fifty Catalan companies on their visit to Panama and Cuba, where they held 300 meetings with local businesses.  

Exports from companies based in Catalonia reached €48.58 billion during the first 9 months of 2016, a 2.1% increase compared to the same period last year. According to the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness, this figure sets a new historic high for Catalonia’s export sector, which has been growing strongly over the last few years. Moreover, in September Catalan exports were worth €5.7 billion, which is the highest figure for this month since the beginning of the historic series, in 2000. The sectors that contributed the most to the positive export figures were the chemical sector, which concentrated 60.8% of total exports, followed by equipment goods and the automotive sector. On the other hand, Catalonia’s trade deficit between January and September rose by 0.5% in comparison to the same period in 2015 and totalled €9.2 billion. 

According to a study released this Thursday by the Catalan Ministry for Economy and Tax Office, the “autonomic framework” does not leave “enough room” to cope with poverty and inequality in Catalonia. ‘Economy note 103: Analysis and tools to tackle poverty and inequality’, a report that includes 19 extensive articles from around 30 experts, technicians and academics, stresses that the scope of the Catalan Government’s public policies is limited by “the restrictions on powers and availability of income of the current autonomic framework”. In the same vein, Catalan Vice President and Catalan Minister for Economy and Tax Office, Oriol Junqueras, said that this situation has forced him to prepare a budget for next year “that is neither the one Catalans deserve nor what they need” because it does not correspond to the “economic and fiscal effort” made by the citizens.

Autonomous vehicles or a device capable of detecting free parking spaces, intelligent lights that monitor traffic, headphones designed to facilitate the mobility of blind people in cities and charging spaces for mobile phones that take advantage of the structure of the old telephone booths. These are some of the technological innovations that visitors can see at the sixth edition of the Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC), taking place between this Tuesday and next Thursday. The event is the showcase of smart cities and this year celebrates its largest edition yet, with 600 cities participating, 576 exhibitors, 412 speakers and a forecast for 14,000 visitors. Along with this event, the Gran Via Exhibition Centre is hosting three more: the Circular Economy Summit, iWater and European Utility Week, which turns Barcelona into the world capital of sustainable development.

Prices went up by 1% in October, in comparison to September, and left the annual inflation rate in Catalonia at 0.9%, according to the definitive data released on Tuesday by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE). The products that influenced the increase in prices most were the clothing and footwear sector, due to the start of the winter season, and the price of electricity and fuel – both rose in October this year, while they decreased in the same month of 2015. The inflation rate at the end of October is the highest registered since August 2013, when it reached 1.7%, and confirms an upward trend that has now lasted for three months. 

In annual terms, the Catalan economy grew by 3.3% in the third quarter of 2016 according to official data released this week by the Catalan Ministry for Economy and Tax Office and the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat). This increase is mainly thanks to the boost provided by the services sector, which saw annual growth of 3%, and the acceleration of the industrial sector, whose growth stood at 4.9%, the highest for the last six years. The quarterly growth rate, however, stood at 0.7%, one tenth lower rise than the previous quarter, but four percentage points above the Eurozone average. According to the data, there is a slight slowdown in the expansion of the Catalan economy, as annual growth in the first and second quarter of this year were 3.7% and 3.5%, respectively.  

The Financial Times report FDi European Cities and Regions of the future 2016/2017, recognised Catalonia as the best Southern European region to invest in for 2016 and 2017. To make the most of this prognosis, the Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, visited London this Monday, in the framework of the 'Brexit' plan, which aims to promote foreign investment in Catalonia and strengthen trade relations with the United Kingdom. At a meeting with thirty businessmen and international investors at the headquarters of the newspaper the Financial Times, Baiget explained that that there is "no anxiety" among investors regarding the political process going on in Catalonia, but rather only "interest". Furthermore, the Catalan Minister stressed that investors really value “Catalonia’s assets”, such as its “good communications and trained and qualified people”. 

Barcelona’s Chamber of Commerce reported this Thursday that 2015 was the worst year in the historical data series, which dates back to 1997, in the rate of state investment in the transport infrastructure in Catalonia. Specifically, the Spanish Government executed only 59% of the budgeted investment in Catalonia, below the average of all the Spanish Autonomous Communities, which stood at 72%. The president of the Chamber, Miquel Valls, lamented in a press conference that the low degree of implementation of investment occurs on an initial budget which is already relatively small for Catalonia. Last year, the Spanish executive budgeted for the region 9.9% of total state investment in transport infrastructure, despite the Catalan GDP accounting for 18.9% of the state’s overall GDP.

The number of people unemployed and registered as such at the Catalan Public Employment Service (SOC) at the end of October increased by 7,325 peoplecompared to the September figures, a growth of 1.62%, according to data released on Monday by the Spanish Ministry for Employment. In total, there were 458,406 individuals who were without a job and were looking for a new one. In the whole of Spain, unemployment increased by 44,685 people in October, which means that the total number of jobseekers registered on the Public Employment Service’s lists reached 3,764,982. Within the last 12 months, unemployment in Spain fell by 411,387individuals, 9.85% less than last year.The construction sector is the only area where unemployment decreased in both Catalonia and Spain. 

The Barcelona-based energy company Gas Natural Fenosa, through its subsidiary Global Power Generation (GPG), has signed an agreement to acquire a majority stake of 85% in two solar plants in Brazil from Gransolar Group. The operation will involve an investment of €85 million to implement their first power generation project in the Brazilian market. The production of these two facilities will be about 154 GWh a year. With this agreement, and the construction of a 91 MW plant in Australia announced last August, the holding company GPG Gas Natural Fenosa has already exceeded the target of energy production set for 2018 in its strategic plan.

CaixaBank, Catalonia's largest financial group and one of the most significant companies in the whole of Spain, reported this Friday net attributable profit of €970 million for the first nine months of 2016, down 2.6% on the same period of 2015, which included a number of one-off impacts associated with the integration of Barclays Bank, SAU. Pre-tax profit amounted to €1,314 million, up 45.2% in comparison to last year.  Impairment losses on financial assets and others totalled €1,177 million, a 33.3% decreased in comparison to last year on account of the reduction in loan-loss provisions.

The number of unemployed people in Catalonia dropped to 552,500 people in the third quarter of 2016, representing a decrease of 51,100 people in relation to the second quarter, according to the latest Active Population Survey (EPA). The unemployment rate fell to 14.63%, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008. The environment of economic recovery, with record numbers in the tourism sector, led to the creation of about 42,700 new jobs, the largest number ever recorded in any of the seventeen regions of Spain. Catalonia closed the third quarter with 3.2 million employed people, a 3.64% increase over the previous year, and was the community with the highest number of people employed, ahead of Madrid (with 2.8 million).