Providing facilities to the company, the first step for Asturias to stop depending on public coffers

by time news

Asturias, economists say, has been in a “vicious circle” for decades: the aging of the population discourages entrepreneurship, leading to a youth exodus. The emigration of young people, in turn, is once again hitting demography and employment. there, explain Florentino Felgueroso, PhD in Economics from the University of Oviedo and associate researcher at Fedea, the effects of the “second round” begin for Asturias: a spiral that condemns the regional economy to be less and less productive and more dependent on the “single bank”. The Principality has been sustained for years thanks to transfers from other regions. The income of half of Asturians comes from public coffers.

Experts affirm that there is no clear solution, but call for measures to try to turn the situation around. The researcher at the Regiolab of the University of Oviedo Esteban Fernandez Vazquez believes that the solution lies in “generating an attractive ecosystem for private initiative”. The economist, however, does not refer to tax measures as businessmen often claim. Or not just them. “Lowering taxes is not the only way to encourage private activity, I think it is more important to reduce bureaucracy, facilitate hiring… these are two points in which a competitive advantage can be marked compared to other parts of Spain”, he believes Fernandez. What is clear, he says, is that the region, historically, “has not known how to take care” of private initiative.

Felgueroso warns of the risks of this “vicious circle” will continue to direct the economy towards sectors that must be covered: an older population is more dependent and requires more weight from public employment. Meanwhile, he will continue the exodus: “Asturias is one of the regions that has exported the most young people and that decapitalizes the region.” Thus, the economist criticizes those who, for years, branded this phenomenon an “urban legend”. Now, after years of inaction, he laments, it is difficult to react.

Felgueroso believes that many people “do not understand” how the pension system works: “There is a discourse installed that pensioners have paid for their pension with their work, but the system is not like that: pensions are paid with the work of each anus”. Although he denies being an expert in this field, the Asturian economist recalls that, for years, there have been works that have warned that the system is unsustainable in the long term. These circumstances, Fernández points out, make Asturias a net recipient of common money.

Immigration, the experts agree, is not enough to want it to reverse the demographic problem. Felgueroso points to the data on Ukrainian refugees: they have found employment in Madrid and Levante, but not in Asturias. The only solution to solve the problem of Asturian aging is to promote business and employment. But, the economists explain, it is not enough to recover the work figures by increasing the workload of the administrations: “you cannot always depend on the single fund”.

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