Foreign companies invested 755 million euros in their Spanish subsidiaries between 2007 and 2021.
Eight out of every hundred companies engaged in commercial activities in Spain specialise in the sale of fashion and footwear products. This is the textile retail industry, one of the most productive retail industries in Spain. Foreign companies in this industry invested 755 million euros in their Spanish subsidiaries between 2007 and 2021. 85% came from the European Union, with the Netherlands (26%) and Germany (24%) in the lead and France in third place (15%). Denmark also stands out, with 14% of the total, which exceeds 100 million euros and is ahead of countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.
These data are part of the report entitled “The contribution of textile retail to the Spanish economy”, prepared by Afi (Analistas Financieros Internacionales, International Financial Analysts) for the Spanish Textile Retail Association (Asociación Retail Textil España, ARTE). This study analyses the activity of this industry in Spain with the aim of analysing both its social and economic contribution and its contribution to the main strategic challenges currently facing our country, such as digital transformation and sustainability.
Attractive to foreign multinationals
Promotion of the Spain brand has actively contributed to the Spanish economy’s internationalisation process. Spanish companies in the industry invested 870 million euros between 2007 and 2021 outside our country. But our domestic market is also attractive to foreign multinationals, which point to the number of tourists as an incentive that adds more than 80 million potential customers to our 48 million inhabitants.
The Afi report refers to another study, produced by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), which states that Spain is the country with the ninth highest contribution of shopping tourism to GDP. This is due to the synergies of shopping with food, culture and leisure. According to this second report, in 2021 alone shopping tourism actually increased tourist spending by 2.21 billion euros and supported 55,800 jobs.
Contribution to GDP
According to the Afi report, textile retailing generates around 5% of the turnover of Spanish commercial activity. In figures, the 60,000 companies that focus on the fashion trade in Spain will have an average annual turnover of more than 40 billion euros between 2018 and 2022. In 2022, the industry contributed 19.8 billion euros to the Spanish economy, equivalent to 1.62% of GDP and representing 60% of the value added in the fashion industry overall.
In terms of its contribution to the labour market, the industry’s activity, employed more than 248,000 people on average between 2018 and 2022, according to social security data, accounting for 1.3% of the total. If full-time equivalent jobs are considered, it directly employs around 161,000 people, equivalent to 0.83% of our workforce. It does in addition contribute to supporting another 160,000 indirect and induced jobs.
The study also highlights the impact of fashion retail activity on other businesses, including real estate, construction, the textile and footwear industry itself, and logistics and transport. It has at the same time become a leading industry in the digital transformation of its operations, with major innovations in all stages of the sales chain.
Learn more about it in the following link: Increased foreign direct investment in Spanish textile retailing (investinspain.org)