Editing Asturias (section)

==Economy==
[[File:Asturian sheep.jpg|thumb|Asturian sheep on Picos de Europa]]
[[File:Torre CCS Gijón.JPG|upright|thumbnail|right|El Musel, the Port of Gijón]]
[[File:CentroNiemeyer70.jpg|thumb|[[Centro Niemeyer]] designed by [[Oscar Niemeyer]] ]]

For centuries, the backbone of the Asturian economy was [[agriculture]] and [[fishing]]. [[Milk]] production and its derivatives was also traditional, but its big development was a byproduct of the economic expansion of the late 1960s. Nowadays, products from the dairy cooperative Central Lechera Asturiana are being commercialised all over Spain.

The main regional industry in modern times, however, was [[coal]] mining and [[steel]] production: in the times of Francisco Franco's dictatorship, it was the centre of Spain's steel industry. The then state-owned ENSIDESA steel company is now part of the privatised [[Aceralia]], now part of the [[ArcelorMittal]] Group. The industry created many jobs, which resulted in significant migration from other regions in Spain, mainly [[Extremadura]], [[Andalusia]] and [[Castile and León]].

The steel industry is now in decline when measured in terms of number of jobs provided, as is the mining. The reasons for the latter are mainly the high costs of production to extract the coal compared to other regions. Regional economic growth is below the broader Spanish rate, though in recent years growth in service industries has helped reduce Asturias's high rate of unemployment. Large out-of-town retail parks have opened near the region's largest cities (Gijón and Oviedo), whilst the ever-present Spanish construction industry appears to continue to thrive.

Asturias has benefited extensively since 1986 from [[European Union]] investment in roads and other essential [[infrastructure]], though there has also been some controversy regarding how these funds are spent, for example, on miners' pensions.

The [[Gross domestic product]] (GDP) of the autonomous community was 23.3 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 1.9% of Spanish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 24,400 euros or 81% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 98% of the EU average.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/10474907/1-05032020-AP-EN.pdf/81807e19-e4c8-2e53-c98a-933f5bf30f58 |title=Regional GDP per capita ranged from 30% to 263% of the EU average in 2018 |website=Eurostat |access-date=2020-03-07 |archive-date=2022-10-09 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/10474907/1-05032020-AP-EN.pdf/81807e19-e4c8-2e53-c98a-933f5bf30f58 |url-status=live }}</ref> This makes the region the 10th richest in Spain, a big decrease from the 1970s/1980s - the heyday of the Spanish mining industry, when Asturias was commonly regarded as one of the most prosperous regions in Southern Europe. Asturias has been growing below the Spanish national average since the decline of the mining industry, and grew just 0.82% in 2008, the lowest of all regions in Spain. On the plus side, unemployment in Asturias is below the average of Spain; it stood at 13.7% in 2017.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=de&pcode=tgs00010&plugin=1 |title=Regional Unemployment by NUTS2 Region |website=Eurostat |access-date=2018-11-13 |archive-date=2018-11-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105202703/https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=de&pcode=tgs00010&plugin=1 |url-status=live }}</ref>
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:85%"
!Year
!2006!!2007!!2008!!2009!!2010!!2011!!2012!!2013!!2014!!2015!!2016!!2017!!2018!!2019!!2020
|-
!Unemployment rate
|9.1% ||8.0% ||10.0% ||14.1% ||16.6% ||18.8% ||23.8% ||22.3% ||20.8% ||20.3% ||14.6% ||14.6% ||12.9% ||13.1% ||13.5%
|}