Valencian AC

• The Valencian Autonomous Community is the region with the fourth highest GDP, accounting for 9.3% of Spain’s total GDP.
• With a little over 5.4 million inhabitants, 10.9% of the national total, it  is the region with the fourth largest population.
• GDP per capita (26,453 euros) is 14.6% below the average. Its relative decline over recent years is due to lower economic growth against a backdrop of higher population growth.
• In terms of its sectoral composition, the region is notable for the relative importance of manufactured goods (14.5% vs. 11.9% on average) and construction (6.7% vs. 5.9%). However, industry-related services are of lesser importance (27.2% vs. 29.7%), as is agriculture (1.9% vs. 2.7%).
• The region is highly export-oriented: exports of goods account for  27.3% of GDP (25.6% on average in Spain). The region is the fourth largest exporter, with 36.978 billion euros in 2024, 9.6% of all Spanish exports. The main products exported are food (23.9% of the total), above all fruit and pulses, chemical products (13.5%) and products from the motor vehicle industry (13.1%); it accounts for 48% of Spanish exports of construction materials, 31% of footwear and 24% of fruit and pulses. In turn, although tourism activities contribute a high share of GDP, it is less dependent on international tourism than the rest of Spain: in 2024, 54.9% of overnight stays in hotels were by foreign tourists (vs. 63.8%).

The Valencian economy is performing at a similar level to that of the country as a whole. At CaixaBank Research we estimate that Valencia’s GDP grew by 3.0% in 2024 (3.2% in Spain), somewhat lower than originally anticipated due to the impact of the DANA floods, which may have reduced growth by 2 or 3 tenths of a percentage point. Activity was driven by construction and, above all, tourism, which, in turn, boosted consumption, explaining the strength of the labour market.

Our forecasts indicate GDP growth of 2.3% in 2025, slightly below the national average (2.5%). This loss of momentum is due to the rate of growth of tourism returning to normal and foreign demand being constrained by modest growth in the euro area. In the short term, growth will be hit by the DANA floods, but the investment effort to rebuild and replace the capital that was destroyed – supported by EU funds – will boost growth. Furthermore, the improved financing conditions and easing inflation will continue to support private consumption.

Employment is performing well, somewhat better than across the country, with a 2.6% rise in the number of workers affiliated to Social Security in 2024 (2.4% in Spain) and a 2.7% year-on-year rise in February of this year (vs. 2.4%): hotels and restaurants, transportation and healthcare have seen the biggest rises in employment over the last year, while there have been job losses in the public sector. In any event, Valencia has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, 12.3% in Q4 2024, compared to an average of 10.6%.

Consumption is performing better than in Spain as a whole. The volume of sales of retail and consumer goods rose by 2.6% in 2024, bettering the figures for the whole of Spain (2.1%). Meanwhile, it has the highest number of passenger car registrations in the country, with growth of 15.1% in 2024 and an extraordinary 70.0% year-on-year growth in January-February 2025, due to the need to replace the many vehicles destroyed by the DANA floods.

However, industrial production is performing worse than it is in Spain as a whole: in 2024 the IPI fell for the second consecutive year, by 2.8% (0.7% on average for the country), hit by poorly performing consumer durables and, above all, capital goods.

In line with this downturn in industry, exports of goods are also performing poorly and have been declining for two years now. In 2024, they fell by 2.7%, (0.2% on average nationwide), hit by falling sales of capital goods – especially transport equipment – and products from the motor vehicle industry, which could not be offset by the upturn in food (fruit and pulses) and energy products, whose sales partly recovered after the sharp downturn in the previous year (the regasification plant in Sagunto was adversely affected by prices returning to normal levels).

Tourism activities are suffering from the effects of the DANA floods and their post-pandemic recovery has faltered. In January, total overnight stays rose by just 0.3% year-on-year (3.0% in Spain) and it is the only major tourist region where the inflow of foreign tourists fell (–2.6% vs. 6.1% in Spain).