Trade in Value Added (TiVA) Dashboard

Globalization has profoundly reshaped the way goods and services are produced and distributed worldwide, creating increasingly fragmented and interdependent value chains across countries. This new reality demands statistical tools that enable the analysis of economic interactions, the assessment of geopolitical risks, and the understanding of social, economic, and environmental impacts.

Today, the National Statistics Institute (INE) published for the first time, and on an experimental basis, the Trade in Value Added (TiVA) Dashboard, which describes the impact of globalization on the economy and its integration into global value chains. This provides a measure of Spain’s participation in global production networks and quantifies the value added generated within the country.

The indicators are compiled in accordance with national accounts systems and primarily use FIGARO as their main data source. FIGARO is a European statistic that provides a multiregional input-output model developed by Eurostat in collaboration with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, based on the national accounts of each country. The panel thus represents a prominent example of international cooperation and the efficient use of available information within the European Statistical System.

Eurostat also publishes today the FIGARO results and the macroeconomic globalisation indicators for 2023 for all European Union (EU) countries -Macroeconomic Globalisation Indicators- which are fully consistent with those released by the INE.

The new tool allows for the analysis of global interdependencies between sectors and countries, and the assessment of how changes in the supply or demand of goods and services can propagate along global value chains, with economic and environmental implications for national economies.

However, it is important to consider the inherent limitations of these types of indicators and the multiregional input-output models that underpin them. These models rely on complex processes of harmonizing each country’s foreign trade flows and a series of simplifying assumptions, such as the homogeneity of each activity in terms of product and productivity, or the proportionality in input use.

A large part of the total value of goods and services exported by the Spanish economy has been generated domestically (domestic value added); another portion corresponds to the value of inputs imported from other economies that have been used in their production (foreign value added).

The domestic value added embodied in Spain’s exports was estimated at €328,161 million in 2023. This figure represented 22.0% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Manufacturing industry exports generated the highest value added, totaling €143,067 million. Of this amount, €65,907 million was value added generated within the same sector (direct effect), and €77,160 million was value generated in other sectors of the economy (indirect effect).

Including direct and indirect contributions, the activities of Trade, Transport, and Hospitality were the largest contributors to the exported output (€107,936 million), followed by the Manufacturing Industry (€84,282 million).

By country, exports to France generated the highest value added in the Spanish economy, amounting to €44,824 million.

Exports to Germany generated €25,924 million of Spanish value added, those to the United Kingdom €22,258 million, and exports to the United States €21,583 million.

The foreign value added embodied in Spain’s exports was estimated at €127,839 million in 2023. This figure was 5.7% lower than in 2022.

The number of employed persons linked to export activity was 5.1 million in 2023, 1.0% higher than in 2022. This figure represented 24.0% of total employment in the economy.

Trade, Transport, and Hospitality were the activities with the highest volume of employment linked to the export of goods and services in the Spanish economy (2.1 million employed persons), followed by manufacturing activities (1.1 million).

Meanwhile, exports from manufacturing activities generated the most employment (both direct and indirect), involving 2.0 million employed persons.

By importing country, exports to France contributed the highest volume of employment to the national economy (0.7 million).

The Trade in Value Added (TiVA) Dashboard will be published annually, with each edition in year t incorporating results for year t-2 and providing updated results for the entire series. This is consistent with the updates of FIGARO results by Eurostat and the revisions of national accounts.

The data published today are final. All results from this operation are available at INEbase.