Catalan exports will close 2021 with a record of more than 78,000 million euros, a figure that represents an increase of 18% compared to last year and 6% over 2019, according to data estimated by Acció, the agency for business competitiveness of the Department of Business and Labor of the Generalitat. With these upwardly revised forecasts, since initially this year's improvement was set at 13%, sales by Catalan companies abroad will register the highest value in the entire historical series, which began in 1993, and are above pre-pandemic levels.
According to Acció's calculations, which will have the definitive data in mid-February, "exports in Catalonia would grow more strongly than the world average," which according to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be 10% in 2021.
For the Minister of Business and Labor, Roger Torrent, the upward revision of the estimates "reinforces the robustness of the Catalan foreign sector and its capacity to adapt to changes in world trade," as he pointed out in a statement. In this sense, he highlights that the Catalan economy is "fully inserted into the global value chain and, therefore, more exposed to these changes." "While it is true that it is more affected when world trade slows down, it also has a greater capacity to recover faster when it accelerates," Torrent added.
Foreign sales fell 10.3% in 2020, due to covidThe growth of exports in 2021 breaks the sharp decline caused by covid-19 in 2020, which resulted in an annual decrease of 10.3%, to 66,265 million euros. A drop after nine consecutive years with record export figures after the financial crisis period from 2008 to 2010, which was similar to that of Spain as a whole (-10%) and the Eurozone (-9.1%).
However, last year, the sectors of activity less affected by the pandemic or more necessary in that context saw how foreign demand still remained at good levels. This was the case for food, which increased exports by 7.6%, and pharmaceutical products, which did so by 7.3%.