Asturias, the second community that spends the most on paying its staff and on supplies

2023-09-27 04:15:00

Asturias is the second autonomous community in Spain with the highest proportion of operating expenses, that is, that which is used to pay the salaries of officials and the purchase of goods and services. The Principality’s disbursement in this chapter represents 64.3% of all its non-financial expenditure (that which excludes the payment of interest on the debt), which represents more than 3,000 million euros. This is a percentage almost eight points higher than the national average (56.6%) and only surpassed by that of Murcia (67.2%). This is stated in the study “Indebtedness of the autonomous communities”, prepared by BBVA Research, and published shortly after it became known that The Asturian Administration has reached a record of 44,000 public employeesand in the midst of debate on regional tax policy and on the reform of the regional financing system.

The report evaluates the financial strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish communities, comparing the evolution of different variables between 2015 and 2022. Thus, in the aforementioned chapter of operating expenses, in those seven years the Asturian disbursement barely changed, reducing only one tenth, from 65.4% to 64.3%.

Taking into account that the data refers to 2022, the Principality’s Budget for that year set a non-financial expenditure limit of 4,754 million, so the 64.3% allocated to paying officials and supplies implied a cost of 3,056 million euros. Applied the same percentage to the 2023 Accounts, with 5,338 million expected for non-financial expenditure, the disbursement would amount to 3,432 million euros.

4,200 euros per Asturian

In other aspects, Asturias does not fare so badly in the BBVA Research study. So, The per capita debt is the second lowest in the country, with 4,199.4 euros per inhabitant, only behind the Canary Islands (2,874). On the other hand, the largest corresponds to Catalonia, with about 10,981 euros per citizen.

Regarding the volume of debt, Asturias is the fifth least indebted region, with 16.6% of the regional GDP. It is overtaken by the Canary Islands (13.1%), Madrid (13.4%), the Basque Country (13.9%) and Navarra (14.3%). For its part, the largest relative liabilities are found in the Valencian Community (44.5%), Castilla-La Mancha (33.7%), Catalonia (33.5%) and Murcia (32.3%).

Regarding gross savings, in Asturias this reached 3.9% of current income (above the national average, at 3.1%). Capital spending accounted for 1.3% of GDP, also more than the country average (1.1%).

The report maintains that the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA) has become the main financing instrument of regional governments, representing almost 59% of the total debt.