Financial Times : Basque Country perfect place to do business after ETA disarmed

The report turns the spotlight on the Basque Country and comes out in praise of the chances the Basque region offers once the armed Basque group ETA has abandoned its armed struggle.

An special report published on Tuesday by the international business newspaper Financial Times turned the spotlight on the Basque Country and came out in praise of the chances the Basque region offers once the armed Basque group ETA has abandoned its armed struggle.
The article also includes an interview to the Basque Premier or Lehendakari that points out that the end of ETA's armed struggle can unleash the full potential of the Basque region.
The report, four pages long, mentions the region's fiscal independence as one of the advantages as it is "not obliged to make large annual transfers of its wealth to poorer parts of Spain such as Andalusia".
Unlike in other Spanish regions, the Basque Country was not so hardly stricken by the crisis as those where the housing bubble was biggest as it avoided the "home construction frenzy and so suffered less when it ended in 2007".
As important as this last reason, is for the Basque companies a "twin-track approach to survive and expand, betting where possible on innovation through research and development, and investing abroad to take advantage of dynamic markets from China to Brazil."
Another article in the report came out in praise of the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC), a co-operative model made up of worker-owned businesses including the Eroski supermarket chain, banking, electrical domestic products and car parts manufacturing.
The report also mentions other Basque Country strong points such as the cold merger of three saving banks to create Kutxa Bank or Basque gastronomy.
Source: http://www.eitb.com/en/news/detail/858245/financial-times-praises-basque-country-perfect-place-do-business/