Talking about Seville’s economy inevitably entails talking about the metal sector, one of the most representative economic sectors due to the wide range of sub-sectors and activities it encompasses, with more than 9,000 companies and 83,000 employees, and with an annual turnover of more than 14,000 million euros.
Seville is in the top 10 of the provinces with the highest weight of metal companies in the total number of companies in this sector in Spain. Specifically, Metal in Seville is responsible for 11.8% of employment in the province as a whole.
Metal in Seville accounts for 34.6% of the GVA of the entire sector in Andalusia and 7.8% of the region’s total GVA.
Contrary to what one might think, the metal industry in Seville is not just metallurgy and the manufacture of metal products. It is that and much more. In fact, under its broad umbrella, the metal industry encompasses a wide range of sub-sectors, including the automotive, aerospace, metal-mechanical ancillary companies, installation, industrial assembly, mining, lifting, structural engineering, metal trading, service stations and machinery and capital goods.
Some of these sub-sectors are now international benchmarks. And here we must undoubtedly mention Seville’s aerospace industry: it accounts for most of the turnover and employment in the Andalusian aerospace sector, representing 85% of the sector (1,700 million euros and more than 9,500 jobs) and contributing around 4.86% to the province’s GDP. All this makes Seville one of the most important aeronautical hubs in Europe, with big names such as Airbus and a valuable ancillary industry, highly qualified and with world-class technological standards.
In addition to the aeronautical industry, other metal industries such as mining, the defence industry and the automotive industry, also have a specific weight in our province, led by important driving companies such as Cobre las Cruces (First Quantum Minerals), Santa Bárbara Sistemas (General Dynamics European Land Systems), or the HORSE plant in Seville’s San Jerónimo district (former Renault factory), around which a strong, competitive and more prepared than ever ancillary industry also revolves.
FEDEME: bringing added value to metal companies since 1977
In 1977, the association that brings together the employers of the entire metal industry in Seville was founded as the Federación de Empresarios del Metal, FEDEME, the “dean” of Spanish business organisations, constituted even before the CEOE (Spanish Employers’ Confederation).
The main purpose of FEDEME is to represent, manage and defend the interests of its members before the authorities and public institutions, as well as to promote the highest economic and social development of the metal business community.
Its members include large companies from the various subsectors that make up the metal industry, but the majority of its members are SMEs, especially micro and medium-sized companies with up to 250 employees.
The Federation is also the business representation in the negotiation of the four collective bargaining agreements for the metal sector in the province of Seville. Additionally, it includes in its structure a total of 21 associations (provincial and regional), which in turn represent the interests of the different sub-sectors of the metal sector and its industry.
An industry that is synonymous with the future, thanks to the wealth and quality of employment it generates, making Seville an area of industrial excellence.
