At the 20th January meeting in Seville, Ramón Contreras Ramos, who is the director of international relations from Andalusia’s most widely represented business organisation the Andalusian Confederation of Businessmen and Women CEA, gave the Estonian business delegation an overview of the economy in Spain's 2nd biggest region and CEA’s successful activity as social partner resulting in several agreements that have improved the economic growth and employment in the region.

CEA’s director of international relations, Ramón Contreras Ramos and chairman of the Employers’ Confederation, Tarmo Kriis

Newsletter The Factory will give you a summary of Ramón Contreras Ramose’s speech about the autonomous region of Andalusia and the organisation of local entrepreneurs CEA.

Spain and Andalusia within Spain

Spain is a country of autonomous regions, which is formally treated as a single entity but functions as a federation without a central government, consisting of 17 autonomous regions and two autonomous cities, where each of them has a local government at various levels.

Spain is one of the most decentralised countries in Europe – many areas in its different regions are administrated at a local level.

Andalusia has the biggest population among Spain’s autonomous regions (8,285,692 people in 2009, of whom 6.6% or 526,942 people were immigrants).    The population has mainly concentrated in provincial capitals and coastal areas, which means that the urbanisation levels of Andalusia are relatively high. Half of the people of Andalusia reside in 28 cities, each with a population of more than 50,000. The population is old but migration processes are having a positive effect on the inhabitants’ age structure.

Andalusia is the 2nd biggest autonomous region by area: with its 87,268 km² it covers 17.3% of Spain’s territory and is comparable to many European countries by the size of its area as well as internal structures.

An important figure about Andalusia is it’s GDP at 18,500 euro per resident.

There are many enterprises in Andalusia, approximately 510,072, which ranks it 5th among other autonomous regions.

Agriculture and tourism dominate

Primary sector plays the most important part in Andalusia, regardless of its low profitability levels. The prominence of primary sector is minimal in other Western economies. In Andalusia the primary sector with its long tradition produces 16.5% of GDP and employs 8.3% of the active population according to 2009 data. The competitiveness of this sector in monetary terms has improved in recent years.

Organic farming is also widely spread, mainly for export to European markets, but internal demand is growing steadily too.

The region’s weak industrial sector has generally played a small role in the economy. Nevertheless, in absolute values the sector produced 11,979 million euros in 2007 and employed more than 216,600 workers. Andalusia’s industry accounts for 9.15%, which is lower than the national level of 15.08%. This demonstrates the diminishing importance of the industrial sector in Andalusia's economy.

The agro-industrial sector forms the basis of Andalusia’s future. This economic engine of rural areas joins together agricultural production, territory and rural livelihood.

About 16% of Andalusia’s GDP is generated by agriculture, encompassing more than 5,000 industries. The importance of the turnover from this sector of economy symbolises progress. Product sales volume is approx. 12,000 million euros. This sector is the biggest employer with more than 216,000 workers.

Service sector role, both as a producer and an employer, has grown significantly over the last few years. Having been a small insignificant sector, it has developed into one of the major ones, like in many other western economies.

The development of three sectors has taken a unique route in the economy of Andalusia. In 1975, the service sector generated 51.1% of Andalusia’s GDP and employed 40.8% of the population, which by 2009 had increased to 67.9% and 63.55% accordingly. The sector’s development happened sooner than in other developed economies and was not dependent on the industrial sector but based mainly on the competitiveness of tourism.

Andalusia is the 1st in tourism among Spain’s autonomous regions, with approximately 30 million annual visitors. The main destinations are Costa del Sol and Sierra Nevada. Andalusia is located on the southern part of the Iberian peninsula, which is one of the warmest regions of Europe. The climate is mainly Mediterranean with many sunny days and beaches, providing an ideal opportunity for developing sun and beach tourism.

In addition, there has been a significant growth in nature and internal tourisms, and some progress in culture tourism, sightseeing tourism, sports tourism and congress tourism. There is an alternative to the sun in the form of snow – tourists visit Sierra Nevada ski centre.

Some of the new developing trends in the region’s economic activity are environmental and nature reserve protection and preservation, waste management, alternative energies and sustainable use of water resources. In the industrial sector the importance of information and communications technology is growing, along with aeronautics technology.

Entrepreneurs’ organisation – CEA

In addition to Andalusia, I would also like tell you about the organisation that best represents the region’s enterprises. The Andalusian Confederation of Businessmen and Women (CEA) is a regional, professional and inter-sectorial confederal organisation, which was established to coordinate, represent and protect general and specific interests of entrepreneurs. The organisation’s goals are achieved with the help of its legal personnel.

Currently CEA represents Andalusian companies in all industries and sectors. It has 750 members: large enterprises, pymes or medium-sized enterprises and micorpymes or small-sized enterprises, and the self-employed.

During its lifetime of 30 years CEA has also become the member of the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organisations (CEOE) and Spanish Confederation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. CEA is a prestigious organisation which is actively involved in the life of Andalusia - dialogue (communication) and collaboration are the best means to encourage initiative and entrepreneurship.

Thanks to CEA’s dedication and dialogue seven different cooperation agreements have been concluded between the regional government and workers’ organisations since 1993, contributing to growth of economy, increased employment and achieving social balance. Andalusia was first in Spain to conclude such agreements that enhance economic policy, resulting in significant structural changes that have boosted the region’s unprecedented economic growth.

At present CEA offers its services to enterprises from their head quarters, as well as through their 90 offices constituting the business services network across different parts of Andalusia.

Estonia-Andalusia economic contacts

The economic movements between Estonia and Andalusia are best described through figures. Andalusia’s export to Estonia exceeds 7 million euros and Estonia’s import is around 5 million euros. This turnover has plenty of scope for growth. The information available from the chairman of the Employers' Confederation can be a good start for this process.