Eustat applies a pioneering methodology in Europe based on models of small areas to obtain some of the most relevant data for the industrial sector in the twenty districts in the A.C. of the Basque Country.

This new and complex methodology enables statistical data to be obtained for aggregation levels below Provinces, which are the levels for which samples are usually designed in different statistical operations. In this way, an attempt is made to respond to the growing statistical demand on disaggregated data that has arisen over recent years from different social agents.

From the estimation of the data for Basque industry by districts for the year 2003, we see that the district of Greater Bilbao represents a quarter of the industrial value added (25.4%) of the A.C. of the Basque Country. Second is the Llanada Alavesa with 13.2% and the district of Donostia-San Sebastián, with 11.9%. These three districts contribute slightly over half the industrial value added (50.5%) of the A.C. of the Basque Country in 2003 and 50.4% in 2002. In terms of industrial personnel employed, these three provinces employ 47.7% of the industrial workers in the A.C. of the Basque Country.

The Duranguesado, Alto Deba and Cantábrica Alavesa contributed 18.8% of industrial value added in the A.C. of the Basque Country and represented 19.6% of the personnel employed in the sector. Therefore, 69.3% of industry is concentrated in six of the twenty districts in the A.C. of the Basque Country. However, this phenomenon of concentration-dispersion varies from one province to another.

In the Province of Álava, almost two thirds of the industrial value added (precisely 64.2%) is concentrated in the Llanada Alavesa, while the district of the Montaña Alavesa houses only 0.5%. The four remaining districts in this province have an industrial wieght that stands between 13.9% for Cantábrica Alavesa and 3.9% in the Valles Alaveses.

The effect of the concentration of industry by districts is also significant in Bizkaia, where 81.0% is accumulated in two districts, Greater Bilbao (61.0%) and the Duranguesado (20.0%), while the province of the Encartaciones hardly accounts for 2.8% of industrial activity in the province. The third district with the greatest industrial weight is Arratia-Nervión, with 4.7% of the industrial value added in this province.

In Gipuzkoa the concentration is lower and the inter-distirct balance is more weighted than in the other three provinces. Half the industry is concentrated in two districts: Donostia-San Sebastián (31.,4%) and Bajo Deba (20.0%), but at the same time, there are districts like Goierri and Urola Costa, with 13.5% and 12.2% relative provincial industrial weight, respectively. By contrast, the district with the lowest industrial weight is Bajo Bidasoa, in Gipuzkoa, but accounts for 4.6% of the industry in the province, compared to 0.5% of the Montaña Alavesa and 2.8% of Encartaciones.

Industry in the A.C. of the Basque Country obtained 2.8% nominal growth in 2003 and this average growth was surpassed by the districts of Valles Alaveses (18.2%), Rioja Alavesa (11.3%) and Llanada Alavesa (3.2%), in Álava; by Marquina-Ondarroa (12.1%), Gernika-Bermeo (10.3%) and Greater Bilbao (4.2%) in Bizkaia; and by Bajo Bidasoa (5.9%), Tolosa (4.9%), Goierri (4.1%) and Urola Costa (3.2%) in Gipuzkoa.

With regard to the evolution of personnel employed in 2003, all the districts in Alava showed a postive profile, except for Montaña Alavesa. Only two districts in Bizkaia (Arratia-Nervión and Plentzia-Mungia) decreased in industrial employment, while all the others increased employment. With reference to Gipuzkoa, only one district (Alto Deba) reduced industrial workers, the other six increasing by varying degrees.