Country profile on rural characteristics Spain - RuDI

More documents

Recommendations

Info

3 Specific rural circumstancesIn Spain rural areas cover the 86% of the territory (either at predominant orintermediate rurality) and about 55% of the population live in these areas. theimportance of intermediate rural areas has increased all around Europe and this trend iseven more marked in Spain, where the share of population, gross value added andemployment is even higher than in the average EU25 (see table 1).Table 1: Area, population, Gross Value Added (GVA) and employment in NUTS 3rural regions 2004 in Spain.Predominantlyrural %Intermediaterural %Predominantlyurban %Total area 44,7 41,6 13,7EU 25 53,5 36,8 9,6Population 13,0 42,3 44,7EU 25 17,5 36,7 45,8GVA 10,5 39,2 50,3EU 25 12,2 30,6 57,2Employment 11,7 40,1 48,2EU 25 19,4 35,2 45,4(Source: Rural Development in the European Union - Statistical and Economic Information -Report 2007)Spanish rural territories are affected by a depopulation problem, due among otherreasons to the nature of the terrain, climate, water scarcity.Population density varies greatly among type of regions, as Table 2 shows. Population isgenerally concentrated on the coast, with a typically higher density in urban areas. thepopulation density is however constantly lower than the EU25 average, irrespective ofthe type of region.Intermediate rural areas, however, showed a significantly dynamic trend in populationdensity between 1995 and 2004. This is a trend common to other EU countries, whichhowever appeared to be more marked in Spain, where the pace of increase of populationdensity was 7,7% with respect to the 2,8% in the average of EU countries.Table 2: Population density and change of population density in NUTS 3 ruralregions 2004 in Spain (inhab/km2).PredominantlyruralPopulation densityIntermediateruralPredominantlyurbanES/EU25ES 24,6 85,7 275,1 84,4EU25 37,9 115,9 552,4 116,3Change of population density 1995 to 2004ES 0,4 7,7 22,8 6,5EU25 0,4 2,8 18,2 3,0(Source: Rural Development in the European Union - Statistical and EconomicInformation - Report 2007)12
The GDP per capita in Spain has shown in the period 1996-2003 a considerably moredynamic growth than in EU25. Although urban areas lead this growth trend, also in ruralareas GDP per capita increased at a significantly quicker pace and was in 2003 above theEU25 average (Table 3). Although urban GDP per capita remains below EU25 average,the annual percentage changes show how rapidly Spain is converging to EU standards.The composition of GDP in rural areas has varied and the primary sector is no longer theengine of the development of rural areas, accounting for only the 12,3% inpredominantly rural areas and 4,6% in intermediate rural areas. Although these figuresshow that Spanish averages are still higher than EU25 ones (see Table 4) 2 , the EU-widetrend of a progressive decrease of the importance of the role of primary sector in ruralareas is confirmed in Spain. In addition, and in countertrend with the rest of the EU,secondary and tertiary GVA is increasing in rural areas, because economic activities areincreasingly relocated out of urban areas. For the industrial sector, for instance, this isalso related to the fact that rural areas are more and more endowed with adequateinfrastructure (transport, information and communication technologies), which increasesaccessibility and offers the opportunity to access to reduced production cost areas (alsobecause of lower salaries) 3 . The same happens for the tertiary sector: a growing numberof small-medium enterprises relocated in rural areas, especially related to tourism,leisure and health activities.The tertiary sector is also the one which underwent a more dynamic employment trend inthe period 2000-2004 and was, in general, the sector employing the most of labour forcein 2004 (65%).Table 3: Gross Domestic Product per capita in 2003 and change of GrossDomestic Product from 1996 to 2003 NUTS 3 rural regions (EU 27 = 100).PredominantlyruralIntermediateruralPredominantlyurbanES/EU25GDP/Capita 81 94 114 101EU 25 77 90 130 106Change of GDP/Capita 5 7 10 8EU 25 1 0 2 1(Source: Rural Development in the European Union - Statistical and Economic Information - Report2007)2 Partly because of the considerable weight of systems based on irrigation, early agricultural products anddelicacies.3 Industrial sectors which have seen a relocation in rural areas include agro-food industry, textile, furnitures,other industrial sectors supporting construction or other industrial branches.13
Page 1 and 2: Country pr
Page 3 and 4: We are grateful to prof. Lourdes Vi
Page 6 and 7: The primary focus of RuDI is upon r
Page 8 and 9: Figure 1: Urban-Rural Typology of N
Page 10 and 11: Figure 3 Classification of rural ar
Page 16 and 17: Table 8: Primary sector GVA 2004 an
Page 18 and 19: EU25 44,6 16,3 35,6 3,2(Source: Eur
Page 20 and 21: Table 18: Unemployment rate 2005 by
Page 22 and 23: 4 Policy principles and delivery st
Page 24 and 25: epresents the attempt to design a n
Page 26 and 27: Table 24: Public expenditure per Ax
Page 28 and 29: The law 45/2007 allows the design o
Page 30: ReferencesCarlos Arroyos. Desarroll

Country profile on rural characteristics Spain - RuDI

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?