Malaga, third in Spain for business startups after Madrid and Barcelona

Malaga is the third province in Spain with the most company startups in the first half of 2023. Between January and May, the number of trading companies set up in the province reached 3,300, according to data published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) last week. This figure is only behind that of Madrid, where the number of companies created was 11,321, and Barcelona, where more than 7,700 firms were set up. Valencia is close behind Malaga, with more than 3,000 new companies created in the first five months of this year.

In Andalucía, Malaga is followed by Seville, where, between January and May of this year, 2,187 new companies were set up. Next in the region is Cadiz, but with fewer than 1,000 companies.

In Andalucía as a whole, 9,078 companies were created between January and May (13% more than a year earlier), which means that the 3,300 startups in Malaga represent 35% of the total created in Andalucía in the first five months of the year.

The number of new firms has also set record levels within the province of Malaga this year: the 3,300 companies created from January to May are the most at least since 2008, when the INE statistics of this kind began. But this coexists with another more negative trend: the capital associated with the new companies this year amounts to 130 million euros, a lower figure than in the same period of 2022, when the investment exceeded 147 million euros.

Across Spain there has been a greater dynamism this year than last in company startups. The accumulated figure for the first five months of the year, which exceeds 50,700 new companies in the country as a whole, is almost 10% higher than in 2022, when the number of startups was 46,132. Growth in Malaga has been higher, up close to 12%, from the 2,950 companies created between January and May 2022.

But if we focus on the last month, the growth shown by Malaga is much faster. Some 766 new companies were created in the province in May, representing a 33% increase compared to the figure for May 2022. The rise in Spain as a whole was limited to 14% year-on-year, from 9,132 new companies in May 2022 to 10,404 in the same month this year.

Also in a month-on-month comparison, contrasting the May data with that of April, Malaga comes out ahead: the growth in Spain as a whole is 20.7%, while in the province the rise is almost 30%.

Sergio Cuberos, president of the Malaga Chamber of Commerce, explains that the figures we are seeing this year in terms of company startups reflect the consolidation of what has been happening in recent years, which is due to the great economic activity in the province - which can also be seen in Malaga's leadership in self-employment - and also to population growth (the province attracts around 50,000 people a year), as well as the higher volumes of investment.

Natalia Sánchez Romero, secretary general of the Confederation of Malaga Business Owners, for her part, highlights that all sectors are contributing to this growth, particularly tourism, technology and agri-food, but also culture, logistics and transport. As for the challenges for the future, rather than the continued growth in the number of companies, what is most important is to strengthen and consolidate this corporate ecosystem, which also highlights the role of the self-employed.

Cuberos pointed out that there are good prospects for the future, due to the growth of tourism, the boom in the technology sector and the need for more housing that will generate new companies in the construction sector and its entire ecosystem. Worse prospects, however, could be for the commerce sector, which has already seen a drop in the number of self-employed workers, for example.