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The city of Barcelona
Economic capital of Catalonia and one of the main metropolis of Europe.
Barcelona, located in the north east of Spain and on the shores of the Mediterranean, it is one of the biggest European metropolis and the centre of an extensive metropolitan region of more than 217 municipalities, in which 4.6 million inhabitants reside. It is the economic, cultural and administrative capital of Catalonia, and provides work for more than a million workers.
It leads an emerging area of economic activity in southern Europe, with 17 million inhabitants and more than 800,000 companies. This Euro-Mediterranean region, which includes the Balearic Islands, Valencia, Aragon and south-east France, is preferably oriented towards the new strategic, competitive, and international sectors, and is consolidated as internationally as one of the main European main European metropolis.
The urban strategy, that nowadays is renowned internationally as the Barcelona model, represents an economic growth that can be qualified as very relevant. The metropolitan GDP per capita has gone from 83% of the European Union in 1996 to around its current level of 115%.
The bases of this growth can be found in a metropolis with a polycentric and economically diversified business structure that facilitates its role as incubator for new ideas, business and products.
The rate of entrepreneurial activity in Catalonia is the highest in Spain and occupies the second place for the whole of the EU. The number of economic activities in the city of Barcelona has grown 8% in the last 5 years, and the number of active companies represents 77% of the total number of Catalan companies and 15% of the total of Spain.
