The tourist season hasn't even started yet, but economic actors are already preparing for it. Following the call from the Circle of Economy to open a debate on a "stale" mass tourism model, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce is clarifying the sector's importance to the economy.

AstraZeneca, Hipra, and Sanofi are some of the names of the laboratories that the citizens of Catalonia began to learn about as a result of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Since then, in just four years (between 2020 and 2024), up to 23 hubs Digital and healthcare excellence companies have established themselves in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, solidifying the Catalan capital's position as a leading hub for healthcare investment. The arrival of these companies has generated up to 5,000 new jobs and positioned Barcelona as the only Spanish city to appear in the EMEA ranking—which encompasses Europe, the Middle East, and Africa—for attracting global healthcare investment. This is one of the main conclusions drawn from the report. The Barcelona metropolis. Investing, working and living in 2025The study, presented this Tuesday by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, compiles data from over 80 different indicators. According to the study, which shows that the greater Barcelona area has climbed to 12th position among the capital cities attracting the most investment in healthcare, at a level very similar to Zurich, Munich, and Dublin, but still far behind London, Paris, and Cambridge, which lead the rankings. Barcelona's position improves even further, to 9th, when we look at the health technology companies subsector. More companies and a stronger position also translate into greater talent attraction, more research, and more publications. The Barcelona metropolis has established itself as the ninth European region in scientific output and the 50th in the world. In 2023 alone, more than 1,500 articles were registered, representing 25% of the total published throughout Spain. The life sciences and health sector also attracted more than 25,500 graduates (with bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees) in scientific fields that year. And overall, Catalonia maintains its 3rd position in Europe in the number of "highly cited" publications per million inhabitants regarding advanced therapies, only behind Switzerland and the Netherlands. During the presentation, the president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Josep Santacreu, argued that to maintain this level, Barcelona must further strengthen its overall vision. "Our future involves presenting ourselves to the world as a metropolis that is larger than just the city of Barcelona," he said. From the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), the vice president for social and economic development, Jordi Valls, emphasized the importance of public-private collaboration and asserted that the success of the health sector also brings "direct benefits" to citizens: strengthening the public health system and improving the salary structure.

The number of people employed in the Barcelona metropolitan area exceeds 2.6 million, the highest figure ever recorded. This figure, taken as a whole, symbolizes the dynamism and resilience of the labor market, which has grown largely driven by information technology services, but also by other sectors—associated with lower and more temporary wages—such as postal and courier activities. In fact, this latter subsector, that of delivery workers, has seen the greatest increase in employment since January 2024.

The long-awaited Chambers of Commerce Act is beginning to move forward. More than ten years later, the proposed Chambers of Commerce Act, agreed upon by the 13 Catalan Chambers of Commerce, was submitted this Thursday to the Parliament of Catalonia to the main parliamentary groups that will support the approval of the text. Thus, the PSC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), ERC (Electrical and Regional Government), Junts (Junts), and the PP (People's Party) have registered the Act, which now enters parliamentary procedure and is expected to be approved by the end of 2025 or early 2026.

Since Josep Santacreu was sworn in as president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce in October 2023, with the clear objective—among others—of "recovering relations with large companies" within the institution, there has been a steady stream of new collaborations under the "institutional partner" category. In fact, since this category was reinstated in September 2024—which already existed during the time of Miquel Valls, prior to the arrival of the pro-independence list Herramientas de País to the institution—the first company to join this category was Ibercaja, the latest being Indra, in an agreement signed just a week ago, according to the Chamber itself.