On the 17th of December, AMUEBLA organized a workshop within the INNO Industry project with stakeholders who have contact with Region of Murcia policy in the business field, with special interest in those who have a relationship with digital transformation.
The goal for this workshop was to detect improvement areas and best practices, which then will serve as baseline for the Action Plans to be developed within the project. The overall aim is to gain a better understanding of relevant framework conditions and activities within in the partner region as well as among project partners.
The Region of Murcia, like Spain, has been in a period of beginning economic recovery since 2014-15, after a deep crisis suffered since 2007-08. This recovery in economic activity after the crisis is not matched by growth in employment. In any case, the regional unemployment rate, traditionally higher than the national one, tends to match the latter in recent years.
The regional industrial fabric, like the national one, is characterized by its fragmentation, being formed mainly by micro-SMEs with less than 10 employees (84% of the number of companies).
Exports from the Region of Murcia have grown at very high rates in recent years, both in absolute terms and in relation to GDP. The industrial sector has contributed the greatest volume to this growth trend, as the value of regional industrial exports has doubled in the period 2010-18.
There is also a growing trend over the period in regional business investment in R&D and innovation, clearly led by the industrial fabric. The Region of Murcia has developed infrastructures for technological entrepreneurship, in all phases of business creation and growth, and a consolidated regional system of science, technology and innovation, with public and private participants, complemented by a wide range of university offerings. There is business representation in this system, although collaboration between agents has been limited.
