Business

The annual rate of mortgage borrowing increased substantially in the last 12 months, thanks to increasing confidence in the economy. The average amount borrowed for a mortgage in Catalonia in June was €134,509, according to figures published by the National Institute of Statistics of Spain. This figure is higher than the average Spanish mortgage, which stands at €112,516. In total, the amount borrowed in Catalonia for mortgages in June was €559.7 million, a 72.7% increase in comparison to June 2015 and a 10.8% increase in comparison to May 2016. Up to 4,161 mortgages were sold in Catalonia in the first month of summer.

Catalonia continues to be the most attractive destination for international tourists travelling to Spain. Up to 25.3% of all foreign visitors stay in Catalonia, according to figures published on Tuesday, which also show a 4.7% increase in the number of tourists between January and July 2016. The majority of international tourists staying in Catalonia are French (23.5%) and British (10.6%). In August, most regions within Catalonia have been fully booked, with figures suggesting better results than in summer 2015.

The Catalan multinational, through its international power generation business company Global Power Generation (GPG), has been awarded its first wind farm contract in Australia. The 91-megawatt park will be constructed in the state of New South Wales, 90 kilometres from the capital city Canberra. Gas Natural will invest €120 million euros in the wind farm, which will be named Crookwell II and will be situated in one of the more environmentally friendly areas of Australia. The contract will last for 20 years. The wind farm will be operational in the second half of 2018, according to Gas Natural.

A new poll shows that tourists in the Catalan capital gave the city a score of 8.6 on a scale of 0 to 10. An almost excellent result, which is, however, overshadowed by concerns by those same visitors that the city attracts way too many people. In fact, 58% of those that took part in the poll consider Barcelona’s tourist spots overcrowded. On summer Sundays, up to 20,000 people arrive in Barcelona by cruise ship. The figure will peak on the 11th of September, when up to 28,100 people are expected to arrive by sea. The tourism poll was conducted in 2015 in different tourist areas, hotels and airports and ports of Barcelona. From those taking part, 47.5% were visiting the city for the first time, and 52.5% had been there before.

12.7% more passengers used Barcelona El Prat Airport’s facilities during the first half of 2016 than in the same period last year. According to data released by the Airports Council International (ACI) and adding the figures corresponding to July, 25,028,393 people used El Prat’s facilities in the first seven months of the year. Thus, Barcelona’s airport has the second-largest passenger growth in group 1, which includes those airports with more than 25 million passengers per year, only behind that of Dublin, which registered 13.4% growth. However, in June, El Prat was the European airport which saw the highest increase in the number of passengers (10%) and its pace of growth was double that of the European airport average. According to ACI these good results are mainly due to the high amount of low-cost flights operated to and from El Prat, which was double the amount operated from Madrid. Moreover, the number of movements from January to July reached 117,326, which represents 6.5% more than in the same period last year.

The Catalan Government and Barcelona’s City Hall will join efforts to house those companies which want to leave the UK due to Brexit. “We will specifically address entrepreneurs, start-ups and ICT companies”, explained Catalan Ministry for Business and Knowledge Jordi Baiget.“We to want tell British entrepreneurs and multinational companies that Barcelona and Catalonia are a great destination”, added Barcelona’s deputy Mayor, Jaume Collboni. More than 2,000 Catalan companies regularly export to the UK and 22.4% of Spanish exports to the state are from Catalonia. Regarding imports, the Barcelona area received 2.2 billion euros from UK-based companies in 2015, 5.8% more than the previous year. In June the Catalan Government also offered to host the headquarters of the European Medicines Agency, which is currently in London.

The number of people registered on the unemployment lists in Catalonia in July stood at 441,016 people, 9,044 fewer than in June, according to the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Security. July represents the sixth consecutive month in which the unemployment rate has decreased and has now returned to 2008 levels, in particular those of December of that year, when the number of unemployed in Catalonia stood at 423,232. Since 2010 unemployment has usually fallen in July, due to seasonal contracts and summer sales. However, this year not only the services but all economic sectors contributed to this decline. In the whole of Spain, the number of unemployed fell by 83,993 and totalled 3,683,061, the biggest decline in July since 1997.

Neither ‘Brexit’ nor the lack of a government in Spain seem to have affected the progress of the Catalan economy, which registered 3.5% growth at the end of the second quarter of 2016 compared to the same period last year. According to figures released this Thursday by the Catalan Finance Ministry and the Catalan Statistics Institute (Idescat), the pace of growth in  the second quarter was 0.8% in terms of GDP, the same figure registered in the previous quarter. Regarding the economic sectors, industry registered the highest growth, even higher than the Eurozone average. Considering these figures, the forecasts for the whole of 2016 made by the Catalan Department for Economy may have to be revised upwards, since in May the body estimated a 2.9% growth for the whole year.

The Port of Barcelona continues to break records. During the first half of 2016, the number of containers handled, a reliable indicator of economic activity, exceeded one million, the best figure ever registered for a six-month period. This represents a growth of 13% in comparison to the same period last year, according to Port de Barcelona’s President, Sixte Cambra. Freight traffic in the Port of Barcelona made up a total of 24.2 million tonnes, which is 4% more than the same period last year and the amount of exports grew by 54% in comparison to the record figure registered in 2008. According to Cambra, these figures “consolidate the recovery of freight traffic and accelerate the figures of the Port of Barcelona’s activity”.

Health organisations in Catalonia received 43.5 MEUR from the EU Horizon 2020 programme to fund projects in this field between 2014 and 2015. This amount represents 42.5% of the total allocated by this European initiative to the Spanish State, according to figures released this Friday by the Spanish Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), a public business entity which belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Madrid is second on the ranking, with 25.6 MEUR received, followed by the Valencian Community, which got 8.2 MEUR. The Catalan Department for Health has stated that it considers these figures to prove “Catalonia’s clear leadership in health research”.

The 21st edition of the Investment Forum, organised by the public business competitiveness and internationalisation agency ACCIÓ, gathered together 700 entrepreneurs and investors in order to find funding and boost new business projects. This Thursday, at the opening of the Forum, Catalan Minister for Business and Knowledge, Jordi Baiget, emphasised “the need to build a Catalan network of entrepreneurship” based on the “international synergies” that emerge from events such as the Mobile World Congress and the Smart City Fair. According to Baiget, Catalonia is an international pole for entrepreneurs recognised worldwide and it is necessary to keep on working in other to consolidate it. The Catalan Minister also praised Catalans’ entrepreneurial ability, as they captured 800 MEUR in ‘venture capital’ projects in 2015.

There were 20,145 fewer unemployed this past June in Catalonia in relation to the previous month, which sets the total number of unemployed at 450,060. Although unemployment usually falls in June, due to seasonal contracts and summer sales, the figure registered this year is situated in numbers not seen since December 2008. With this decline, Catalonia has now registered three consecutive years of declining unemployment in annual terms and June represents the fifth consecutive month in which the unemployment rate has decreased. Catalonia leads the unemployment decline in Spain, where the total number of people unemployed is now 3,767,054, the second lowest figure in the historic series. 

The Recreational and Tourist Centre of Vila-seca and Salou, the project which was originally named ‘BCN World’, will start to be built in summer 2017. The resort will be located between these two villages – Vila-seca and Salou – on the Costa Daurada, near PortAventura theme park. After numerous reorganisations and changes in the legislation, the project’s hotel surface area will decrease by 29.2% in comparison with the urban plan approved in 2015. The surface area designated for gambling and amusement activities will ultimately be 30,000 m² instead of 60,000 m². The surface area for commercial use and that designated for theatres and congresses has been kept the same. Thus, the total surface area of the project will be 750,000 m² rather than 1,000,000m². The project is expected to receive €2,500 million in private investment and will generate 10,000 jobs when fully operational.

The leading e-commerce company plans to generate 1,500 jobs within three years of the opening of its new logistics centre, expected by autumn 2017. Amazon’s new infrastructure, which will have a surface area equivalent to that of 8 football pitches, will be located in El Prat de Llobregat, the same village where Barcelona El Prat airport is located, a municipality 10 kilometres away from Barcelona. The decision to expand its operations in the region is “not casual”, stated Amazon Spain Fulfilment’s Director of Operations, Fred Pattje and emphasised different assets besides El Prat airport such as Barcelona’s Port and “the economic sectors around the Llobregat delta”.

Seven Catalan start-ups are in London this week for London Technology Week. Finanzarel, Captio, TECH4FIN, Private Network Investments, Capital cell, ECrowd Invest and Social Currencies Management are in the mission organised by the public business competitiveness and internationalisation agency ACCIÓ. Heading the event is Núria Betriu, Director of Industry of the Catalan Department for Business and Knowledge. She will hold meetings with the Government of Wales and visit British companies and investment funds, as well as present at the event Barcelona's Upcoming Tech Scene: New Horizons in Catalonia. The start-ups will participate in individual meetings and networking activities among other things, in order to experience first-hand one of the ecosystems with the most private and alternative investment culture at an international level.