The 'Harmonised Demographics of Companies' report, published this Wednesday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), positions Catalonia as the leading region in the creation of new companies in the chemical industry in 2021. Within this category, according to the methodology used by the INE, manufacturers of cosmetics, perfumery and fragrances are also included. In this recently published document, it can be seen that a total of 37 manufacturers emerged in Catalonia, and it is the leader ahead of Andalusia, with 31, and Madrid, with 21, which fell with respect to the previous year.
These data, however, are lower than the birth of companies in the chemical sector the previous year, despite 2020 being a year marked by the pandemic, these figures clarify the effects of the crisis caused by the covid-19 and the uncertainty also hit the constitution of companies in the sector. In 2020, a total of 185 companies related to the chemical sector were created, and that year, Catalonia was also the autonomous community in which the most were set up with a total of 41. Andalusia, that year, was left with 28, and was positioned ahead of the Spanish capital with 27 companies set up dedicated to the chemical industry. The blow has been harder for communities such as Madrid, whose decline has been even more notorious: the Community of Madrid has seen the number of births of companies in the chemical sector fall in 2021 to 21.
In total, Catalonia maintained a stock of companies in the chemical sector that exceeded 920, reaching 936 companies incorporated, with a slight decrease of 3% compared to the previous year. It is followed by the Valencian Community with more than 530 companies, which also experienced a similar decrease to that of the Catalan community. In third position is Andalusia with 511 companies in the chemical industry, including companies dedicated to the cosmetics sector.
In contrast, Catalonia also became the region with the highest number of chemical industry companies disappearing. Almost 30 companies ceased their economic activity in the Catalan territory and 18 were those that also stopped in Valencia.