Participants in the ceremony includes Raquel Gil, Fifth Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Economic Promotion, Commerce, Restaurants, Markets, Business and Work, and Xavier Marcé, the Councillor for the District of Nou Barris. The four main strategic areas to achieve the goals were presented:

• Promotion of quality jobs and labour market
• Promotion of commerce, services, local restaurants and municipal markets
• Support for local economic activation
• Promotion of the tech sector and cultural events as a key area for economic development

From these four areas, there are twelve goals to be achieved through the 36 actions making up the Economic Development Plan (PDE).

Training, employment and economic activity as major challenges

The plan seeks to work on the generation of quality training and employment in the creation of economic activity to resolve some of these trends:

17.4% of the resident population of Nou Barris aged 16 or over has pursued education at university level or at a higher vocational training level, which is 18.9% lower than the average for Barcelona. At the same time, 25.5% of people have primary school studies or none, a percentage 9.8% above the city average. These indicators make Nou Barris the least qualified district, with the lowest percentage of people with higher education and the highest percentage of people with no qualifications or primary school studies only.

In parallel, according to data from the Socio-Demographic Survey 2022, employment in Nou Barris stands at 62.3%, some 9% below the city average, while unemployment stands at 19.3%, higher than the average by 8.4%. In this respect, the district has the lowest employment rate and highest unemployment figure in the city. As for profiles, 58.6% of unemployed people are women, 57.5% are aged over 45 and 48.2% are long-term unemployed.

Nou Barris is also one of the districts with the most poverty in the city in terms of salaries: 17.3% of residents do not reach the 60% threshold of the average salary for Catalonia. Similarly, according to the Socio-Demographic Survey 2022, some 49.5% of the population of Nou Barris is at risk of poverty and social exclusion (AROPE index), 22.8% more than the city average, making this the district with the highest risk of poverty and social exclusion. Disposable household income is 15,935 euros, some 30% lower than the Barcelona average.

Finally, in terms of the manufacturing network, in 2023 Nou Barris had a total of 8,204 economic stakeholders (4.5% of the city total), making it the district with the lowest volume of activity in the city, with a much lower figure compared to the volume of its population. Nou Barris stands out for its volume of individual companies (53.2%), more than doubling the city average (24.9%), while the private sector (42.9%) is much lower than the figure for Barcelona (69.2%).

New website for economic promotion and commerce

Coinciding with the public presentation of the economic development plan for Nou Barris, the district has launched its Economic Promotion and Commerce website, with full information on economic activity, employment and commerce in Nou Barris, up-to-date news in this sphere and current plans and other documents on economic development.

The website also allows users to get a closer look at high value services such as the Technology Park, aimed at companies, the Cibernàrium, a training space in the tech sphere, and Nou Barris Activa, the municipal space for economic promotion and employment, specifically for people in this district.

Finally, the site includes a map indicating shopping hubs, retail associations and markets in the area, the main elements in the development of district policies.