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Firms with excellent levels of competitiveness represent 11.4% of the Valencian region’s GDP and 7.1% of employment

According to the latest report by the Corporate Governance, Strategy and Competitiveness Observatory (GECE), presented in Valencia by CaixaBank and Ivie, 9.7% of firms in the Valencian Community have achieved excellent levels of competitiveness.

In the Valencian Community, the percentage of firms that manage to position themselves among the most competitive is slightly below the national average of 10%, in line with the modest competitiveness deficit of the productive fabric as a whole. Specifically, 9.7% of Valencian firms achieve excellent levels of competitiveness, according to the latest report by the GECE Observatory, presented in Valencia by CaixaBank and the Ivie. By province, Valencia leads with 9.9% of firms classified as excellent, followed by Castellón with 9.8% and Alicante with 9.4%.

The GECE Observatory conference also featured a panel  discussion on the characteristics of highly competitive firms in the province of Valencia, moderated by Mónica Coronel, Director of CaixaBank’s Port of Valencia Business Center. Panelists included: Pablo Ríos Navarro, CEO of DERCOSA, and Santiago Palop Boix, President of EMUCA. The session was chaired by Pilar Chorén, Ivie Managing Director, and Arturo Peña, Director of CaixaBank’s Business Centers in the Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia.

Alejandro Escribá, Director of the GECE Observatory, presented the report Benchmark de competitividad. ¿Qué rasgos tienen las empresas de excelente competitividad? (Competitiveness Benchmark: What Are the Characteristics of Highly Competitive Firms? ). The report delves into the data on highly competitive firms and analyzes competitiveness patterns across industrial and service sectors. In the industry sector, the high weight of highly competitive firms in technology-intensive sectors stands out, with 20% of Valencian firms achieving excellent competitiveness —nearly double the national average of 11.2%. In the provincial breakdown, Valencia reduces this percentage to 17.4%, but has the highest number of high-tech industrial firms in the excellent group in the Valencian Community.

In the service sector—the backbone of the Valencian economy—the percentage of excellent firms is slightly below the national average in both knowledge-intensive and non-knowledge-intensive firms. However, in knowledge-intensive services, the province of Valencia exceeds the national average with 11% of firms with excellent competitiveness, compared to 10.1% nationally, 9.2% in Alicante and 8.8% in Castellón.

By size, firms with 51 to 100 employees show the highest percentage of excellent competitiveness at 11.5%, rising to 14.7% in Alicante and 15.5% in Castellón, but falling to 9% in Valencia. In contrast, very large firms (over 500 employees) are underrepresented among the excellent: only 6.1%. Castellón (8.3%) and Alicante (11.1%) outperform Valencia, where just 3.8% of large firms are considered highly competitive. In other words, the province of Valencia has a deficit of large firms with excellent competitiveness, which limits the region’s overall competitiveness, as these firms typically contribute more significantly to wealth and employment generation.

Contribution to GDP and employment

The 9.7% of excellent firms in the Valencian Community contribute 11.4% to regional GDP, two points below the contribution of their average counterparts in Spain (13.6%). This suggests that highly competitiveness firms in the Valencian Community are generally smaller in size than their national counterparts. By provinces, firms with excellent competitiveness in Castellón and Alicante contribute 14.8% and 16.2% to GDP, while for Valencia this percentage is only 9%.

It is important to note that highly competitive firms in the technology-intensive industry sector, despite representing 20% of the total, only generate 9.6% of the sector’s GDP, indicating their relatively small size. The authors suggest that these firms should consolidate and grow to enhance the region’s overall competitiveness.

In terms of employment, highly competitive firms account for 7.1% of the total jobs, similar to the national average of 7.3%. At the provincial level, Castellón and Alicante once again stand out for their good results, with these firms generating 10.6% and 10.4% of employment, respectively. In contrast, highly competitive firms in Valencia account for only 5.4% of employment in the province.

More profitable, more solvent, less indebted

According to the new GECE Observatory analysis by Alejandro Escribá and Carlos Albert, highly competitive firms have an average labor productivity of €160,200 per employee—7.4% less than the average for excellent Spanish firms. However, despite this lower value, the productivity of excellent Valencian firms is 2.2 times higher than the average productivity of firms in the region. Castellón shows the greatest productivity gap, with excellent firms performing 2.5 times better than the average, followed by Valencia (2.2) and Alicante (1.8).

In terms of the economic profitability of excellent firms in the Valencian Community, operating profit stands at 14.1% of available assets. This figure varies between 13.4% in Castellón and 14.6% in Valencia—the only province to exceed the national average of 14.3%. This level of profitability is 2.4 times higher than the regional average of all firms of around 5.8%.

In addition, excellent firms also perform better in terms of solvency. The report reveals that the indebtedness of these firms is relatively low, with 22.7% of total liabilities. Although in the province of Valencia the debt of highly competitive firms rises slightly to 23.1%, the percentage is still clearly lower than the 42% average indebtedness of Valencian firms as a whole.

For the authors of the study, these figures reflect the importance of improving competitiveness in the business fabric of the Valencian Community, with a greater number of firms ranking among the excellent, helping to close the gap that separates us from the national average in terms of productivity and GDP per capita, although there is still some way to go. With regard to the province of Valencia, excellent firms show slightly lower average contributions than those observed in Alicante or Castellón, but the number of excellent firms in Valencia is the highest of the three provinces, so their growth and improvement can have a significant impact on the challenge of improving the province’s competitiveness compared to the national average.