Companies in the region vote with their feet against political uncertainty
“WE ARE used to dealing with political crises, but not a break in the rule of law,” says the boss of a big Barcelona cement firm, of Catalonia’s constitutional crisis. Fearing separatists in the region would declare independence, as they did on October 27th, he shifted its headquarters to Madrid. That ended decades of family tradition, but there is no plan to return. “It was a painful decision, but we had no alternative,” he says.
Catalonia accounts for roughly a fifth of Spain’s GDP and a quarter of its exports, but only a sixth of the country’s population. Its diversified economy is the envy of much of Spain, notes Jordi Alberich Llaveria of Cercle d’Economia, a business lobby in Barcelona, thanks to flourishing medium-sized, family-run industrial, textile and perfume-making firms. It has become a hub for multinationals, carmakers, pharmaceutical firms, fashion boutiques and hundreds of…