The objective of achieving a 25% industrial share in Catalonia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a target set years ago, remains an unmet challenge. Initiatives such as the 2014 convocation of business leaders by then-President Artur Mas and Conseller Felip Puig, who acknowledged the error of allowing excessive growth in services at the expense of industry, have not significantly reversed the trend.
Successive National Industry Plans (PNI), with increasing budgets from 1,835 million euros in 2017 to nearly 5,000 million planned for the current plan until 2030, now include the food industry. However, the impact on the sector's GDP share has been limited: from 17.7% in 2014 to 17.2% in 2025, with minor occasional upticks. These figures fall short of the 24.3% recorded at the turn of the century.
Despite the percentage stagnation, absolute figures show a notable increase in the monetary value of industrial production. Since 2014, industrial GDP has risen by 57.7%, reaching 57,511 million euros in 2025, a progression that has accelerated particularly since 2020. Nevertheless, this increase does not translate into a larger relative share, as the rest of the economy has also grown at a higher rate.
Catalonia's industrial sector is undergoing a transition marked by challenges such as the automotive sector's adaptation to electric mobility and the arrival of new competitors. The need for greater industrial sovereignty in Europe and the promotion of sectors like defense, security, chips, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity are new priorities. The potential establishment of an AI gigafactory in Móra la Nova exemplifies this new phase, alongside the strength of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.
