Comercio y economía internacional

The euro area’s industrial sector, historically a pillar of economic strength, faces significant challenges in the wake of recent external shocks, with divergent performance across countries and sectors. Going forward, the outlook for the industrial sector remains uncertain; thus, requiring that country-specific policies be complemented with EU-wide strategies to support key industrial sectors, such as the automotive industry.

Spain’s high-tech product export intensity ranked sixteenth in the EU-27 in 2022, which is a considerable improvement from its position between 2014 and 2018. Given the role played by the high-tech manufacturing industry in unlocking sustained competitiveness gains, strategies are needed to further improve Spain’s recent achievements in this area and to start to close the technology gap with other countries.