It is not that the state’s economy has not grown or that the people of Alicante are now poorer than they were two decades ago. Simply, this others did better or more help. Thus, as Ineca condemned this Thursday, Alicante became The third frontier to lose the most positions in the Spanish GDP ranking per capita since 2000. Las Palmas and Melilla.
This was explained by the Director of Studies of the Alicante “think tank”, Francisco Llopis; your president, Nacho Amirola; and Working Committee coordinator, Kino Palacion this occasion, the loss of competitiveness experienced by the province in this period, chronic lack of investment from central government and Generalitat, as they emphasized.
In the case of Alicante, the state gone from occupying the 27th place In terms of per capita income between the Spanish border lines – a position that places it in the middle of the table – it has fallen particularly low to number 44. Las Palmas, which fell from 16th to 34th, and Melilla, from 28th to 46th, dropped 17 places, this time more abruptly.
Although the head of Ineca stated that they carried out an “in-depth” analysis to determine the exact causes of this fiasco, a certain pattern was observed among them. investments made by the state and the resources available to different regional governments and the evolution of each region, so the provinces with the greatest amount of infrastructure also improved their GDP per capita the most. That’s why a few Galician provinces are among the highest risers in the rankings, such as Ourense, which climbed from 46 to 24, or Lugo, which rose from 43 to 23. investment policy and compensation of Alicante in the next General Government Budgets.
In terms of industry details, Ineca’s Director of Research, weight loss It has suffered from different sectors of the economy in the country as a whole. For example, although Alicante exports increased by almost 75% between 2000 and 2021, the reality is that it is one of the lowest growth rates in the entire state in the same period. Alicante rose to number 18 from the tenth largest exporting province.
Something similar happened with farmingwhere Alicante occupied 16th place 20 years ago and is now down to 25th place; or with industry Production in which even the volume of production decreased during this time. In this way, if Alicante was the seventh most industrialized province twenty years ago, it now has to content itself with occupying a modest 16th place.
Even building or in hotel stays dropped one place, but yes, in these cases the province is at the top of the table: fifth by business volume and seventh in tourist accommodation.
In this way, the Alicante economy only Trade or in business servicesand according to Llopis Health, Education and Culture, ie improvement in the basic services division, which includes public services.
Dimension
In addition to the lack of public investment, Nacho Amirola and Francisco Llopis highlighted the lack of business volume in the region as another burden that has slowed the state’s competitiveness, although there is good news in this case. As Llopis explains, the average number of employees of Alicante companies over the last three years went from 7.93 to 8.37, an increase of 5.5% going in the right direction. And that’s according to Ineca’s estimations, for every worker average size of companies is growingIt adds about 8% more to GDP. In other words, this increase in business size is one of the ways to reduce the per capita income gap with the rest of the country. Of course, there is still a long way to go for now, as the national average is 11 workers per enterprise.
Regarding the situation itself, the Ineca report highlights the good development of almost all statistics, with the particular case of employment being at an all-time high. However, they voiced their concerns from the “think tank” about the slowdown or even the “recession” seen next fall, noting that the infrastructure deficit is a disadvantage in these difficult times.