What is the major industry in Barcelona Spain?
The region serves as host to large automotive assembly plants for Nissan and Seat-VW. The latter’s 14-year-old plant in suburban Barcelona has seen its workforce swell to nearly 12,000 workers who produce cars that have become an increasingly popular choice throughout Europe. In common with much of Western Europe, the older traditional industries, such as textiles, have declined in the face of foreign competition. The surviving companies have closed their factories in the city or along the rivers, leaving industrial wastelands or abandoned workers’ colonies. In many cases, these industries have moved to Zona Franca, an industrial free-port, which has developed across the flat land of the Llobregat delta between the city and its airport to the south. This tariff-free zone has also attracted a wide range of transnational manufacturers, particularly Japanese.
