The GEM report confirms the gradual recovery of entrepreneurial activity in the Region of Valencia

Castellon, 31 October 2023.- Fundación LAB Mediterráneo, a project promoted by the Employers’ Association of Valencia (AVE), collaborated on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report on the Region of Valencia, presented this morning in the European Centre of Businesses and Innovation of Castellon (CEEI Castellon). 

This new edition of the GEM presented the latest data on the evolution of entrepreneurship in the Region of Valencia, with the presence of Justo Vellón, director of the CEEI Castellón; Ester Olivas Cáceres, Director General of Entrepreneurship and Internationalization of the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism; David Cabedo, Vice-Rector for Transfer, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Scientific Dissemination of Universitat Jaume I (UJI); and Enrique Soto, director of Fundación LAB Mediterráneo. 

The GEM report measures the entrepreneurial phenomenon worldwide with a methodology that focuses on the person who undertakes, through the use of the different stages of the entrepreneurial process as a reference. Miguel Hernandez University (UMH) is in charge of the GEM study in the Region of Valencia and has been drawing up the annual reports that analyse the entrepreneurial situation and its evolution since 2004. 

During the presentation, the director of the CEEI Castellon pointed out that entrepreneurial activity “has returned this year to pre-pandemic levels”. He stated that by the end of 2022 in the Region of Valencia “8.3% of the population had expressed their intention to launch a business initiative in the next three years”.  Ester Olivas Cáceres, Director General of Entrepreneurship and Internationalization of the Ministry of Innovation, Industry, Trade and Tourism highlighted the importance of the report as a reference for the entrepreneurship ecosystem“as it sets trends” and stressed the need to “promote our entrepreneurs abroad”. 

With respect to the document relating to the Region of Valencia, 27.1% of the population believes that there are business opportunities six months ahead, a figure consolidating the record achieved the previous year (26.9%). In addition,  6.8% of the adult population was involved in entrepreneurial activities between June and September 2022. This figure implies a strong increase, over 1.5 per cent, with respect to the percentage recorded in 2021,  thus making it five years in a row of growth, which, for José Mª Gómez and Ignacio Mira, directors of the report and lecturers at the UMH, “seems to point to the consolidation of a positive evolution with a gradual recovery of indicators after the pandemic, with this rate increasing significantly and showing 5 consecutive years of growth”. 

The profile of the average entrepreneur has changed with regard to age, due to the fact that older people and those with more qualifications are the current entrepreneurs. Meanwhile there is still little motivation to launch a business in our country  and this has also been negatively impacted by the pandemic years. With regard to the fields generating the greatest percentage of entrepreneurship, the business service sector has established itself as a niche for medium-high technology level entrepreneurial initiatives, as evidenced by the fact that 91.4% of the Initiatives focuses on the service sector (50.7% on consumerism and 40.7% on services to businesses) with 14.7% identifying as being in the medium to high technology sectors. 

The entrepreneur is, on average, approximately 42 years old, with 39.2% of them having higher education qualifications and 79.7% having some form of specific training for entrepreneurship. This profile is similar to the national profile and . practically the same as the one recorded in 2021 in the Region of Valencia. According to the document, the profile of the average person involved in business activities in the Region of Valencia corresponds to a woman in 52.9% of cases. 

Personal motivation to start a business is a consequence of the lack of other job alternatives (72.4% of the people involved in these entrepreneurial activities), implying a decrease of about nine points compared to the 2021 figure. As for the funding sources, the main one is still personal savings (38.7%), as opposed to resorting to friends and relatives(29%), subsidies or public aid (13.8%) or banks and financial institutions (11.3%). The percentage of the population that admits to fear of failure as an obstacle in the entrepreneurial process is still somewhat higher than in 2021 (55.9% compared to 54.5%). 

As regards the entrepreneurial process, the director of the CEEI called for business activity to be motivated through the promotion of a “bolder and more innovation-focused” entrepreneurial culture. To conclude, he stressed that it was a total priority to“Promote entrepreneurial activity from primary education, training entrepreneurs in the classroom and guiding them towards this activity in order to have a talent pool for the future”. As noted above, data in the report point to a lack of young entrepreneurs which, in his opinion “could limit long-term growth compared to other countries of reference”. 

The directors of the report perceive the conditions of access to physical infrastructure, to commercial and professional infrastructure, to public support programmes and entrepreneurial guidance in higher education as positive.  At the same time, he highlighted the need for“The ecosystem to offer more funding sources for entrepreneurship and to adapt the fiscal and bureaucratic aspects related to the start-up and development of business ideas”. 

See the rest of the data in the full report. You can check it here 

Fundación LAB Mediterráneo