Press Release 30/12/2022

CULTURE SATELLITE ACCOUNT. 2020

Cultural activities in the Basque Country generated value added of 1,508 million euros in 2020, 2.1% of GDP

In terms of employment, cultural activities accounted for 25,638 full-time equivalent jobs, 2.8% of the total

The Gross Value Added (GVA) of cultural activities stood at 1,508 million euros in 2020 in the Basque Country, equivalent to 2.10% of GDP for that year, according to data from the Culture Satellite Account, prepared by Eustat for the first time. Like all other sectors, culture was affected by the consequences of the pandemic and the measures adopted to prevent its spread, leading to an 8.93% drop in the GVA of the sector compared to 2018. In terms of GDP, the GVA of the culture sector also fell in 2020, going from 2.15% in 2018 to 2.10% in that year, meaning that the effects of the crisis affected cultural activities more than they affected the Basque economy overall.

Cultural activities encompass several sectors, according to their nature, such as “Heritage”, “Archives and libraries”, “Books and press”, “Visual arts”, “Performing arts”, “Audiovisual and multimedia” and “Interdisciplinary”. The most economically relevant of these, in terms of GVA generated, was “Audiovisual and multimedia”, which alone contributed 425 million euros in 2020, 28.2% of cultural GVA; followed by “Books and press” with 409 million, accounting for 27.1% and, in third place, “Visual arts” with 358 million, a contribution of 23.7%.

Employment, measured in full-time equivalent jobs (FTE), was marked by the contributions of “Books and press”, with 8,037 FTE jobs in 2020, accounting for 31.3% of total employment assigned to the culture sectors, followed by “Performing arts”, with 7,651 jobs (29.8%) and “Audiovisual and multimedia” in third place, with 6,232 jobs (24.3%).

On a year-on-year basis, all sectors, both in terms of value added and of employment, registered a decrease in 2020 as a result of the health crisis experienced that year.

As regards the phases of the value chain of cultural goods and services, on one hand we can identify “Nuclear activities”, which include “Creation and production”, “Manufacturing”, “Dissemination and distribution”, “Promotion and regulation” and “Education”; and on the other hand, “Auxiliary activities”, encompassing a part of “Manufacturing”, “Trade and repairs” and other activities.

Nuclear activities made the greatest contribution to cultural GVA, accounting for 87.7% in 2020. The most important of these activities in 2020 was “Creation and Production”, which includes the work of artists (for example, the creation of literary works), as well as the production of the cultural service when it is an integral part of the creative work itself (for example, a music concert or the performance of a theatre play). This phase generated 866 million in GVA, 57.5%. Activities related to “Trade and repairs” came second, which include marketing activities for audio and video players, as well as their repair, among others, with a contribution of 175 million and 11.6% of cultural GVA. “Auxiliary activities” refer to those that lead to the creation of products to facilitate the use and enjoyment of cultural goods and services (for example, the manufacture of musical instruments). These activities accounted for 12.3% of the GVA in the culture sector in 2020, 185 million euros.

In addition to reporting on cultural activities, the Culture Satellite Account in the Basque Country also provides complete data on activities linked to intellectual property. This category excludes certain cultural activities, such as those related to the management of cultural heritage and to education, promotion and cultural regulation, but includes others linked to advertising and computing.

The GVA associated with activities linked to intellectual property is, in general, greater than that generated by cultural activities in the strictest sense and it was also affected by the pandemic: in 2020 it stood at 1,690 million euros, following an 8.6% downturn compared to 2018. In terms of GDP, activities linked to intellectual property accounted for 2.35% in 2020, 5 hundredths less than two years before.

In 2020, the greatest contribution to GVA within activities linked to intellectual property came from “Strictly cultural activities”, with 1,305 million euros, accounting for 77.2% of the total, compared to 229 million euros for “Computing” activities and 155 (13.6%) for those related to “Advertising” (9.2%).

Methodological note:

The Culture Satellite Account of the Basque Country (CSA) is an operation that is part of all the other satellite accounts prepared by EUSTAT. A satellite account is a statistical operation that reflects the reality of an economic sector, employing the same principles, categories and valuation criteria as those applied to the general framework of National Accounting. This method of operation guarantees full comparability between the results obtained for the sector and those obtained for the economy as a whole. The Culture Satellite Account is based on the specification of the culture sector as proposed by UNESCO in the latest edition of its Framework for Cultural Statistics, in 2009, as well as other national and international methodological references.

For further information:

Eustat - Euskal Estatistika Erakundea / Basque Statistics Institute C/ Donostia-San Sebastián, 1 01010 Vitoria-Gasteiz Press Service: servicioprensa@eustat.eus Tel.: 945 01 75 62