The president of Spain's leading aerospace and defence companies' association says that 'we have never been better off'
The group of companies belonging to TEDAE, the largest Spanish association of defence, security, aeronautics and space technology companies, has released its figures for the 2023 financial year just 43 days before the start of 2025.
The 95 large, medium-sized and small companies belonging to the association had a turnover of 13.9 billion euros in 2023 - an increase of 14.5 % -, exported 8.258 billion, which represents 59 % of their production - a 9 percentage point increase - and directly employed 65,681 people, which means creating 12,140 new jobs and increasing the total workforce by 22.67 %.
These are the three most striking parameters of the so-called ‘Economic and Social Report on the Defence, Security, Aeronautics and Space Industry’, drawn up by the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) with data provided by TEDAE itself, which allow TEDAE's president, the 74-year-old diplomat Ricardo Martí Fluxá, to say that ‘we have already recovered the path of growth and are at the levels of activity prior to the pandemic’.
The executive version of the report was presented to the Secretary of State for Defence, Amparo Valcarce, on Monday, 18 November, at the headquarters of the international organisation in Madrid. This was the occasion for Martí Fluxá to affirm that the figures for 2023 ‘are better than any other year’ and then go on to state that ‘therefore, I never get bored of repeating it, we have never been better’.
It is clear that the turnover of TEDAE companies is on an upward trajectory, by comparison with the reports and data offered in previous years by the consultancy firm KPMG, also commissioned by TEDAE: 11,413 million in 2020; 11,594 in 2021; and 12,135 in 2022.
Aeronautics is the spearhead of the TEDAE collective
However, the figure of the round turnover figure for 2023, which amounts to 13,900 million and is included in the report, whose head is the PwC partner, Jordi Esteve, does not agree with Martí Fluxá's statement that the data ‘are better than any other year’.
It is true that such turnover is 14.5% higher than that recorded in 2022, but it still does not match the record figure of 14,101 million turnover reached in 2019. However, the upward trend suggests that the record sales ceiling of 14.101 billion euros reached at the end of the previous decade will be surpassed in 2024.
According to the PwC report, the growth in sales is based on the convergence of three main levers: the increase in defence budgets, the increase in civil aviation activity and the rise in exports. Ricardo Martí Fluxá goes further and insists that TEDAE's sectors ‘are pillars of the new economic model that Spain needs’, as he stated at the presentation of the 2022 report.
Of the four sectors of activity that TEDAE encompasses, the one that in 2023 is once again in the lead is the aeronautical industry, with a turnover of 8,789 million, 12.9% more than in 2023. Companies such as Airbus, Aernnova and Aciturri are its main driving companies. It is followed by the defence sector, with 7,894 million, an increase of 10.5%, in which Airbus, together with GDELS-Santa Bárbara, Navantia and Uro also lead its potential.
The twenty or so companies that develop products and applications for the space sector have leapt by 12.68% and their sales have totalled 1.2 billion, with Airbus, Hisdesat, Hispasat and Thales Alenia Space at the forefront. However, the turnover of security activities fell from 246 million in 2022 to 148 million in 2022, a drop of around 60% that has not been explained.
Exports continue to grow
In terms of investment in research, development and innovation (R&D&I), where TEDAE companies are well above the national average, the PwC report shows that defence, security, aeronautics and space companies as a whole spent 1.187 billion in 2023. This is 1.57% more than what they invested in 2022, which was 1,168.65 million.
In contrast, the export figures are very positive. They grew from 6,125 million in 2022 - 50.47 % of consolidated turnover - to 8,258 million in 2023, representing 59 % of turnover. The leading sector is the aeronautics sector, which sends abroad 6,292 million, 63.38% of its production. It is followed by the space sector, with 887 million, which exports 73.92% of its products.
The Director General of Industrial Programmes of the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, Jordi Linares, spoke at the public presentation of the report, and highlighted the ‘relevance for society of the sectors that are built around TEDAE, not only from an economic point of view, but also from a social point of view’.
Jordi Linares has advanced that his Ministry is finalising the final drafting of a future Law on Industry and Strategic Autonomy, designed to ‘promote an industrial policy aligned with digitisation, environmental sustainability, circular economy and the power in the strategic and industrial autonomy of our country’.
The PwC report highlights that TEDAE companies contributed €8,263 million to the industrial GDP of the Community of Madrid in 2023. Andalusia (2,566 million), the Basque Country (2,192 million) and Catalonia (1,609) were also particularly benefited. To a lesser extent and below 1 billion, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Galicia, Murcia and Asturias.
