Barcelona, a business city
With a long industrial tradition behind it and a large business community, the city is geared towards the economy and knowledge-intensive activities, especially advanced services and new economic activities. Sectors linked to new technologies and sustainability, which offer considerable business and investment opportunities, are developing strongly in the Catalan capital.
For the last 14 years it has been seen as the best city in Europe in terms of the quality of life enjoyed by employees, according to the “European Cities Monitor”, and it is the only southern European city that concentrates, in a five kilometre stretch, one of the Mediterranean's biggest ports, a high-speed train station, an international airport, motorways linked to the European network, the second largest trade fair site in Europe and one of the biggest logistics zones in southern Europe.
Most foreign investment in Catalonia is concentrated in Barcelona, the sixth best city in the world for business. The quality of life and skills of its human capital are two of the things valued most highly by the foreign companies that have moved into the city, as well as by various international rankings.
The city is constantly trying to improve go for to projects with big opportunities for the future. Consequently it is permanently immersed in large-scale urban redevelopment, which requires a lot of public investment and offers big opportunities for private initiative. Various independent, international and comparative studies back Barcelona, an internationally renowned city that enjoys a deserved prestige, as a city to invest and do business in.