Canary Islands

:"Canaries" redirects here. For the bird, see canary.

Economy

The economy is based on tourism 32% of GDP construction near 20% and tropical agriculture (banana, tobacco) for exportation to Europe and the Americas. They receive about 10 million tourists per year. Ecologists are concerned that the resources, especially in the drier islands, are being overexploited.

Related Topics:
Tourism - Banana - Tobacco

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Their economy size is (measured as Gross Domestic Product 2001 figures) 25 billion euro. Two times the size of Costa Rica and one-third the size of Venezuela. Remarkable, taken into account their population and surface. Canary Island is also one of the most powerful economies of central atlantic region, including the zone called "macaronesian" (who include Cape Verde, Madeira, Azores and Canary Islands). The islands experimented continued growth during aprox 20 years in a row (last 20 until 2001), at a rate of 5% annualy aprox, fueled mainly due to huge amounts of Foreign Direct Investment mostly to develop tourism real state (hotels and apartments) and European Funds (near 11 billion euro in 2000-2007 period) since Canary Islands is labelled Region Objective 1 (ellegible to euro structural funds).

Related Topics:
Gross Domestic Product - Costa Rica - Venezuela - Foreign Direct Investment

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The combination of high mountains, belonging to Europe, and clean sky has made the Roque de los Muchachos (in La Palma island) peak a leading placement for telescopes like the Grantecan.

Related Topics:
Roque de los Muchachos - Telescope - Grantecan

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The islands are outside European Union customs territory, though politically within the EU. The ISO 3166-1 ?-2 code IC is reserved for representing them in customs affairs. Goods subject to Spanish customs and excise duties and VAT, such as tobacco or electronic goods, are therefore significantly cheaper in the Canaries. The islands do not have a separate Internet country code from the rest of Spain. The currency is the euro.

Related Topics:
European Union - ISO 3166-1 ?-2 - VAT - Tobacco - Electronic - Internet country code - Euro

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Canarian time is WET, one hour less than that of mainland Spain and the same as that of London.

Related Topics:
WET - Spain - London

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~