Spain's Statistics Institute has just published its annual figures on the numbers of active companies in each of the areas of the state that it analyzes. And on January 1st, 2018, in Catalonia there were a total of 618,366 companies, 1.5% more than the previous year. On that same date, there were 538,917 companies in the Madrid region.
No surprise for those who affirm that the growth of the Catalan economy is solid and has been constant since its post-economic-crisis low in 2014. And a deafening silence has been the response from the dream team of prophets of economic catastrophe who, under the command of the Ciudadanos party and Ines Arrimadas and assisted by Albiol (PP) and Iceta (PSC), took advantage of the independence process to fill the media coverage with lies on a matter as sensitive as the economy, as well as to scare the public.
Business addresses for regulated companies were moved out of Catalonia, while other firms also took the opportunity to jump to Madrid due to their discomfort, perhaps more political than anything else, with the political situation in Catalonia. This is never good, but today it can be seen that there was massive exaggeration in the explanation of this. At the same time as an unprecedented political campaign has been unleashed to propagate all the economic ills of the political process, a list of enormously important global companies such as Facebook, Enerkem, Suez, Amazon, King, Satellogic, WeWork, IGG, PepsiCo, Hawkers and Scopely have made major commitments to Barcelona.
Obsessed as the catastrophists now are with removing yellow ribbons and banners from city halls in a flagrant violation of municipal space, they have not had time to apologize. Too bad, because a prompt rectification is always better. The Catalan government should remind them about this, because good business news should also be a cause of celebration for the opposition. Unless of course, their intention is, along with working tirelessly for social tension, to send the country into economic downturn and decline.