Statistics on Global Value Chains

In order to explain the progressive phenomenon of the globalisation of the economy—understood as the interactions existing in the production processes of certain goods and services between companies resident in Spain and in other countries—the INE today publishes the new European Statistics on Global Value Chains (ECVG), whose main objective is to measure the entire range of cross-border activities necessary to take a product or service from its initial conception to the end consumer, passing through the different phases of production and delivery .

The target population researched are non-agricultural enterprises engaged in industrial activities, commerce or non-financial services which have 50 or more employees. In total, 19,075 statistical enterprises. 7,157 (37.6%) of these reported participating in global value chains.

Business functions can be understood as the set of tasks that companies must regularly carry out, either internally or through external suppliers, to bring their goods or services to market.

The business functions with the largest presence in 2023 in companies belonging to global value chains were Management and Administration (6,530 companies) and Marketing, Sales and After Sales Services (5,353).

The companies that employed the most people in these companies were Production of goods (991,437 employed) and Marketing, sales and after-sales services (663,514).

The function with the highest number of industrial firms participating in global value chains was Production of goods , whereas in the case of commercial and service companies, it was Management and Administration. The function which had the fewest resident firms participating in the value chains in Trade and Services was Research and Development, while in Industry it was Information Technology.

The three main reasons that have led companies to outsource part of their production process outside Spain, or to consider doing so even if they did not do so in the end, were the Reduction of labour costs, a Regulation abroad favourable to the company and the Reduction of costs other than labour costs.

In contrast, the three biggest drawbacks that companies conceived of for outsourcing outside Spain were Legal or administrative barriers, Tax issues and Uncertainty about the quality of the products or services provided abroad.

89.7% of the companies that undertook any international outsourcing between 2021 and 2023 were large companies (250 or more employees) and the remaining 10.3% were medium-sized companies (50 to 249 employees).

Of the companies that outsourced outside Spain, 48.3% were in Industry, 41.4% in Sector Services and 10.3% in Trade.

On the other hand, 93.1% of the companies that outsourced internationally did so to companies belonging to the same business group, among others companies. 37.9% outsourced a certain business function to companies outside their own group.

The business function most frequently outsourced internationally in the period 2021-2023 was Transport, Logistics and Warehousing (69.0%). 24.1% of the companies that outsourced this function outside Spain did so to companies outside their business group and 65.5% within their group. The second most frequent business function outsourced internationally was Management and Administration (34.5% of companies, 20.7% outsourced to companies outside the group, and 27.6% to companies within their own group). Both options can overlap within the same company.

31.4% of companies considered Rising raw material costs related to energy supply in the 2021-2023 three-year period as a Very important constraint for their global value chains.

In turn, 28.3% considered Rising costs of raw materials, intermediate and final goods in existing supply chains, other than those related to energy supply, and 18.3% considered Shortages of supply in existing supply chains for raw materials, final and intermediate goods and services as a very important constraint.

The data published today are final. All results are available on INEbase.

In accordance with the Commission's Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137, the INE has begun to work on incorporating the new National Classification of Economic Activities CNAE-2025 in all its statistical operations.

In the case of the Global Value Chains Statistics, the first publication of results applying CNAE-2025 will take place in 2028.