Catalonia has a lower level of productive investment per employee than the leading countries in Europe, and between 2000 and 2019 its progress has been more contained in relation to the majority of economies in the euro zone. This reality has caused productivity growth to be slower than in the rest of European economies.
However, the mobilization of European Next Generation funds "has not led to an acceleration of investment in Catalonia", according to the Chamber, mainly due to the "temporal mismatch between the mobilization and the final execution of the funds."
In 2019, productive investment in, for example, machinery, patents or computer software, in Catalonia stood at 4,169 euros per worker (measured in constant prices). It is higher than the Spanish average (3,630), but clearly lower than that of countries such as Belgium, Austria and Germany where it exceeds 5,000 euros.
On the other hand, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, Josep Santacreu, has asked this Thursday for "the broadest possible consensus" to confront the persistent drought that Catalonia is going through, as he has warned that the lack of water will be "structural" in this autonomy from now on.
At a press conference, Santacreu pointed out that, although possible rains in February could alleviate the situation, "we are probably heading towards a structural water problem," reports Efe.
He has regretted the lack of political decisions in this area - "we are more than a decade late", he pointed out -, despite indicating that the strategy of the current Government, that is, the commitment to desalinated and reused water, "is fine but it's not enough".
The head of the Cabinet for Economic Studies and Infrastructure, Joan Ramon Rovira, has also warned that the drought could have a significant impact on the Catalan economy. Without taking this factor into account, the forecast is that the Catalan GDP will grow by 1.8% in 2024.
