page_title: Asturias
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Asturias / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: Sheeps on Picos de Europa, Asturias.Català: Ovelles als Picos de Europa a Astúries.
context_page_description: Asturias, officially the Principality of Asturias, is an autonomous community in north-west Spain. It is coextensive with the province of Asturias and contains some of the territory that was part of the larger Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages. Divided into eight comarcas, the autonomous community of Asturias is bordered by Cantabria to the east, by León to the south, by Lugo to the west, and by the Bay of Biscay to the north.
  Asturias is situated in a mountainous setting with vast greenery and lush vegetation, making it part of Green Spain. The region has a maritime climate. It receives plenty of annual rainfall and little sunshine by Spanish standards and has very moderated seasons, most often averaging in the lower 20s celsius. Heat waves are rare due to mountains blocking southerly winds. Winters are very mild for the latitude, especially near sea level.
  The most important cities are the communal capital, Oviedo, the seaport and largest city Gijón, and the industrial town of Avilés. Other municipalities in Asturias include Cangas de Onís, Cangas del Narcea, Gozón, Grado, Langreo, Llanera, Laviana, Lena, Llanes, Mieres, Siero, Valdés, Vegadeo, and Villaviciosa.
context_section_description: For centuries, the backbone of the Asturian economy was agriculture and fishing. Milk production and its derivatives was also traditional, but its big development was a byproduct of the economic expansion of the late 1960s. Nowadays, products from the dairy cooperative Central Lechera Asturiana are being commercialised all over Spain.
  The main regional industry in modern times, however, was coal mining and steel production: in the times of Francisco Franco's dictatorship, it was the centre of Spain's steel industry. The then state-owned ENSIDESA steel company is now part of the privatised Aceralia, now part of the ArcelorMittal Group. The industry created many jobs, which resulted in significant migration from other regions in Spain, mainly Extremadura, Andalusia and Castile and León.
  The steel industry is now in decline when measured in terms of number of jobs provided, as is the mining. The reasons for the latter are mainly the high costs of production to extract the coal compared to other regions. Regional economic growth is below the broader Spanish rate, though in recent years growth in service industries has helped reduce Asturias's high rate of unemployment. Large out-of-town retail parks have opened near the region's largest cities (Gijón and Oviedo), whilst the ever-present Spanish construction industry appears to continue to thrive.
  Asturias has benefited extensively since 1986 from European Union investment in roads and other essential infrastructure, though there has also been some controversy regarding how these funds are spent, for example, on miners' pensions.
  The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the autonomous community was 23.3 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 1.9% of Spanish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 24,400 euros or 81% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 98% of the EU average. This makes the region the 10th richest in Spain, a big decrease from the 1970s/1980s - the heyday of the Spanish mining industry, when Asturias was commonly regarded as one of the most prosperous regions in Southern Europe. Asturias has been growing below the Spanish national average since the decline of the mining industry, and grew just 0.82% in 2008, the lowest of all regions in Spain. On the plus side, unemployment in Asturias is below the average of Spain; it stood at 13.7% in 2017.
caption: Asturian sheep on Picos de Europa
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