improvement in the sharing of know - how between frontier firms and others, in contrast to what is seen in countries such as the united states. i am convinced that the papers presented at this conference and the discussions that take place around them, and in each of the panels, will make a significant contribution to improving our understanding and communication of the spanish economy's structural problems. thank you very much. 1https : / / www. bde. es / f / webbe / ses / secciones / publicaciones / publicacionesanuales / informesanuales / 23 / files / infanual _ 2023 _ cap3 _ en. pdf 2https : / / www. bde. es / f / webbe / ses / secciones / publicaciones / publicacionesanuales / informesanuales / 23 / files / infanual _ 2023 _ cap2 _ en. pdf 3a market condition in which there is only one buyer for a product or service. 4 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches

margarita delgado : productivity, the labour market and spain's ( non - ) convergence with the euro area speech by ms margarita delgado, acting governor of the bank of spain, at the 3rd conference on the spanish economy, organised by the bank of spain, the centro de estudios monetarios y financieros and universidad internacional menendez pelayo, santander, 5 july 2024. * * * i would like to thank the rector of the universidad internacional menendez pelayo and everyone who has helped organise this conference, and all the speakers and panellists and each of you here today for taking part. allow me to open this second day of the conference on the spanish economy by underlining its purpose and the importance of the issues it addresses. this is the third edition of this annual conference organised by the banco de espana, the centro de estudios monetarios y financieros ( cemfi ) and the universidad internacional menendez pelayo ( uimp ). its aim is to provide a forum for discussion to share insight into the main problems facing the spanish economy and possible solutions. these discussions must be rooted in rigorous economic research and that is why each year we seek to gather the academic and research community with a particular interest in the spanish economy. this year, we are focusing on two fundamental challenges that, although addressed last year, merit special attention owing to their importance and continuing relevance. the first is the high unemployment rate, the theme of yesterday's two sessions and panel. the second is low productivity growth, which will be discussed in today's sessions and panel. both of these problems have hampered convergence between income levels in spain and in other european countries since the end of the last century. in particular, spain has not narrowed the gap with per capita income in the eu since the 1990s. measured in purchasing power parity terms, spain's gdp per capita was 92 % of the eu's in 1990, falling to 85 % in 2022. spain's lower productivity explains most of this difference. in fact, if productivity per worker in spain were equal to the eu average ( it is currently 11 percentage points ( pp ) lower ), spain's per capita income would be just 4 % lower than the eu average. and if the spanish employment rate were equal to the eu average, the income gap per capita would shrink by a further 7 pp. when making this comparison, spain still benefits from a slight