Catalan exports reach record high in 2018

Catalan exports beat records for the eighth year in a row in 2018, reaching a total of 71.6 billion euros, according to figures published by the Spanish industry ministry this week. The record figure for 2018 is a 1.1% rise, a smaller increase than the 8.7% exports went up the year before.

Some 17,239 Catalan companies are regular exporters, meaning they have sold their products abroad for the past four years, which is itself a record number. Catalonia’s exports account for 25.1% of all foreign sales from Spain as a whole.

The sector in Catalonia that exported the most was the chemical industry, with 12.1 billion euros in foreign sales, a 3.7% rise over the previous year. That is followed by pharmaceutics (5.1 billion euros, a 1.6% rise), then machinery (4.4 billion, 1.8% more) and then electrical material (3.5 billion, 4.2% more).

In terms of Catalonia’s regions, exports in 2018 by companies in the Barcelona area reached 55 billion euros (a 1.9% increase), followed by Tarragona (8.4 billion, 2.1% less), then Girona (5.2 billion, 1.1% less), and Lleida (2 billion, 0.3% more).