When Hewlett-Packard announced the closure of its Spanish production site in Sant Cugat, near Barcelona, seven years ago, the regional Catalan government put up little resistance.
After years of noting the steady migration of production and jobs in the textile sector to eastern Europe, Asia and north Africa, officials readily acknowledged that Spain’s attraction as a low-cost manufacturing base was on the wane. The price of economic convergence with the rest of western Europe had been higher wages and living costs.
