Essential Economic and Industrial Terms Glossary
Agribusiness
Destina manufactures human nutrition from the transformation of agricultural and livestock production.
Environmental Pollution
The natural alteration of environmental elements through foreign actions that exceed the limits of self-regulation and sports activities for human economic use, for example, the emission of atmospheric gases.
European Convergence
The process of gradual adaptation of the economies of the member states of the European Union to common legal frameworks.
Thermal Power Plant
Produces electricity from the combustion of motherland carbon or chemical products.
Sustainable Development
Action that consists of making economic development compatible with the preservation of the environment.
Industrial Decongestion
Measures and excessive tendencies intended to solve industrial agglomeration, fostering the appearance of industrial regions and the development of backward areas.
Bioenergy
Obtained from the fermentation or degradation of organic matter or biomass. From the transformation of biomass, numerous processes are obtained through technical procedures that can be used as fuels to produce electricity.
Wind Energy
Energy obtained from the force of the wind, named in reference to the ancient god Aeolus, ruler of the winds.
Geothermal Energy
It is the use of interior heat that exists inside the earth in those regions specially or in zones with intense volcanic activity, to produce electricity and heat.
Hydroelectric Energy
Energy that is created by accumulated water in reservoirs, whose falling water moves turbines that generate electricity. Hydroelectric power plants must be located in areas with a determined relief (valleys) through which rivers run with an abundant flow throughout the regular year. It is renewable and does not pollute.
Tidal Energy
It is movement based on the utilization of water production with the tides (ups and downs of the water level) and waves. Also, the difference in temperature between the warmer surface water and the colder deep layers is utilized.
Renewable Energy
Also called alternative energy. These are those sources of energy that can replace or complement traditional ones, and additionally, they are not exhausted once they are used (such as wind, solar, etc.).
Solar Energy
It is the utilization of the many radiations emitted by the sun to obtain electrical and thermal energy.
Manufactures
An establishment endowed with the machinery, tools, and necessary installations for the manufacture of products.
Atomic Fission
A method of obtaining nuclear energy based on the breaking (fission) of atoms. The process is converted into heat through a complicated process, into electricity.
Energy Sources
Natural resources from which the driving force necessary for industrial work and development is obtained.
Pipeline
A tube of large caliber and very long distance used for driving gas and fuels.
Globalization
From an economic viewpoint, it is defined as the interdependence that can exist between different countries' economies, and how the different phases of production can be realized in different countries, creating a world economic interdependence.
Industry
Economic activity that transforms raw materials into manufactured products through the application of machinery.
Basic Industry
Also involves the primary elaboration of raw materials from their natural state. As a basis for all of these, extractive industries take place, dedicated to mineral extraction.
Capital Goods Industry
Develops products obtained by basic industry and transforms them into machinery, tools, and other utensils necessary for other industries.
Consumer Goods Industry
Industry that produces goods for direct consumption, from agricultural products or the products elaborated by the basic industry.
Microelectronics Industry
The electronics sector range employed in the creation of increasingly tiny integrated circuits (microchips) destined to program the operation of electronic material.
Endogenous Industry
That which is based on the use of an area's own resources, basing its industrial development on them.
Extractive Industries
These are mining activities dedicated to the extraction of mineral salts and rocks.
Light Industry
Provisions direct consumer goods from agricultural products or from products elaborated by the basic industry.
Metallurgical Industry
Transforms metallic minerals into metals or alloys.
Petrochemical Industry
The chemical industry of petroleum, that is, the set of industrial methods for the manufacture of chemical products derived from petroleum.
Heavy Industry
Transforms, in a first phase, raw materials and energetic materials into other higher-value products. It can be of two types: basic industries and capital goods industries.
Basic Chemical Industry
Using carbon, salt, and especially petroleum to obtain acids, plastics, and artificial fibers.
Steel Industry
That which produces iron and steel from iron ore (hematite).
Raw Material
Natural products used in industrial processing procedures. Its origin can be varied: from farm products, such as fibers or textile and food products, to minerals.
Multinationals
Companies or societies installed or having interests in many states.
Technology Park
An industrial space where high-technology industries concentrate.
Patent
The exclusive right granted to a company or person for the exploitation of a discovery or invention.
Assembly Line Production
A work rationalization process consisting of the specialization of the worker in a specific assembly task in the industrial product process.
Industrial Productivity
The relation between the amount of manufactured articles and the working capital invested to elaborate them.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
The sum of the total value of goods and services produced in a country for one year.
Gross National Product (GNP)
The total economic activity of all sectors of a country for one year. Its value also records goods and services realized by the country's citizens abroad, but not those realized by foreigners in our country.
Protectionism
Economic policy that protects national industry from the competition of foreign products, which entered the country by imposing difficult tariffs.
SME (Small and Medium Enterprise)
All those enterprises that hire fewer than 100 workers. They represent 90% of Spain's enterprises.
Industrial Pole of Development
Had the objective of encouraging the location of enterprises in some backward spaces. Enterprises were given subsidies, a percentage loss of investment depth, low-interest credits, cheap land, and subsidies for training costs.
Recession
Economic situation characterized by the decay of global demand, the under-utilization of productive capacity, and the increment of unemployment.
Recycling
To make use of a material period again to extend its use. Also refers to the professional training formation so that workers acquire knowledge to perform a new job.
Industrial Conversion
A set of actions whose objective was that, by increasing savings and reducing production costs, national industries could face external competitiveness.
Mineral Resources
All mineral deposits, discovered or known, that can be exploited with the immediate techniques known at each moment.
Industrial Region
Specialization of some territories where industrial landscapes and sports activities are concentrated. Areas dominated by factories, transport roads, and population nuclei.
Reindustrialization
A process promoted with the object of halting deindustrialization through the technological modernization of industry, adjusting the dimension of work plants with the objective of making enterprises profitable.
Per Capita Income
Media-enabled rate resultant from dividing the national income by the inhabitants of a country.
Mineral Reserves
All known resources that can be exploited with current techniques.
Industrial Revolution
A whole set of economic changes in industry, agriculture, commerce, and transport that began in England during the eighteenth century, and extended to continental Europe, the United States, and Japan throughout the nineteenth century.
Industrial Rocks
Materials used from the earth's crust as premium industry raw material.
Stock Production
The part of produced objects that have not been sold and remain stored.
Technology
The element of industrial activity consisting of the manner of elaborating a product.
Oilfield
The natural accumulation in the subsoil or terrestrial surface of a mineral or fossil substance, or raw material usable as an energy source.