The Municipal Data Office publishes, for the first time, the report “The Knowledge Economy in Barcelona. The GVA of technology or knowledge intensive sectors 2018-2022”, which confirms Barcelona’s character as a knowledge economy. This report aims to quantify, in a systematic and standardized way, the Gross Value Added (GVA) of technology or knowledge-intensive sectors in the city and to visualize how the transformation of Barcelona’s productive model is progressing in the direction of more knowledge and productivity.

Two data confirm this weight, growth and dynamism:

• The set of all technology or knowledge-intensive sectors accounted for practically half of the city’s economy (49.6% of Barcelona’s GVA) in 2022.
• The evolution of the sectors of high intensity in technology or knowledge, reveals that they increased their GVA by 38% from 2018 to 2022.

Data that, according to the deputy mayor of Economy, Finance, Economic Promotion and Tourism, Jordi Valls, confirm the wise bet that Barcelona has made:

“The knowledge economy is one of the main economic engines of Barcelona: research, innovation and the most cutting-edge technology applied to key sectors of the future such as biomedicine, telecommunications, the chip industry or the audiovisual sector, among others.”

According to Valls, the city has “an extraordinary innovative ecosystem that makes it possible, entrepreneurs and skilled labor, and a municipal government that leads and spurs progress”. These data also show the fruits of Barcelona Activa programs, innovation hubs such as the Biomedical Research Park and the future Ciutadella Knowledge Hub, the promotion of technological districts such as 22@, and programs to attract and retain talent. A path that “will be reinforced with the Strategic Plan for Science and Innovation, or the new public-private venture capital funds, and that place Barcelona among the leading European cities in innovation”.

The dynamics of technology- or knowledge-intensive sectors from 2018 to 2022 reveal remarkable resilience

The set of all technology- or knowledge-intensive sectors in Barcelona in 2022 generated a GVA of €43,104 million, practically half of the city’s GVA (49.6%). This percentage, stable at around half of the economy throughout the period considered, confirms the character of Barcelona’s economy as a knowledge economy. The GVA of technology or knowledge-intensive sectors in Barcelona in 2022 is 21% higher than in 2018, as opposed to the rest of the economy in 2022 where it only grew by 5%. This differential dynamic confirms the resilience of these sectors in the face of the 2020 crisis.