Catalan exports grow by 3.3% and reach 18,236 million euros in the first quarter

Catalan exports registered a growth of 3.3% in the first quarter of 2018 and reached 18,236 million euros, a figure that represents 25.7% of Spain’s total sales abroad. According to the CEO of Catalonia Trade & Investment, Joan Romero, "this is the best quarter of the historical series, which began in 1995".

The increase in Catalan exports is higher than that of the European Union average (+ 2.9%), as well as that of countries such as Germany (+ 2.8%) or the United Kingdom (+ 2%) and equivalent to that of Italy (+ 3,3%) during the same quarter.

As stated by Romero, "companies are increasingly exporting more, in greater amounts and further away" because "internationalization has become an intrinsic strategy in the business models of Catalan companies and SMEs." "The benefits of selling abroad for companies are clear from a commercial, technical, economic and strategic point of view", while "the fact of having such an internationalized economy has direct consequences on the business fabric as a whole, in a global context in which there is no point in taking action only at the local level and the world must rather be understood as a single market".

According to the data made public by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, the sectors that have led Catalonia exports in the first quarter of the year are the automotive industry (which have increased by 18.4% and have amounted to 3,379 million euros), chemistry (+ 1.8%, 4,733 million euros) and equipment (-1.1%, 3,054 million euros).