RICHEST COUNTRY SOUTHERN EUROPE, SELECT

[Porpolita]

Not so clear because according that list countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, China are richest than Italy and Spain.

Thats why we should look at GDP Per Capita

Otherwise, Gökhan can continue to think Turkey is "richer" than Spain, Portugal and Greece

[Dianatomia]

Among the bigger countries Italy is the richest country, yet at the same time it is more insolvent than Spain. Italy has a high debt to GDP ratio and makes default more probable. Spain is the second richest country.

Greece was richer than Portugal until the debt crisis began. But since they had a higher GDP to debt ratio than Portugal, Greece was seen as the most insolvent nation and went into a deep economic decline. Becoming less wealthy than Portugal. But Greece potentially has some long term prospects if they manage to tax the shipping industry and if they exploit the natural gas and oil in their economic zone. But that´s not any time soon and Greece may well decide to default before they do any of that.

[Dianatomia]

Thats why we should look at GDP Per Capita

Otherwise, Gökhan can continue to think Turkey is "richer" than Spain, Portugal and Greece

Turkey has the healthiest economy at the moment (although lately Turkey´s economic spur is starting to decline). But that does not incline they are richer. They are considerably poorer as whole.

[Ctwentysevenj]

Northern Italy.

Africa begins at Rome.

How things are, I thought Africa begins south of Malmo, Sweden!

[Sikeliot]

Italy > Spain > Portugal > Greece in that order.

[dawson]

Vatican State

[Ouistreham]

Just an example what Italy produces, could not be done in any other southern European country:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...-assembly-line


They build this:


The above is only a small example. Also Italy Has the fourth largest gold reserve in the world

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve

The Vega rocket is a nice addition to the European Space Agency arsenal, it fills a market niche the French Ariane launchers didn't cover (it can put into orbit a payload of one ton instead of 25), but seriously, any country is able to build solid propellant launchers for that purpose. Even Iran, Israel and Indonesia do.

Back to the topic: with a GDP/per capita slightly higher than Spain's and a 30% larger population, Italy is obviously the leading economic power in that part of the world, but for how long?

In terms of research and development expenditure, Italy doesn't look quite good. Even Spain does marginally better:

% of GDP in R&D expenses:

3.55 Finland
3.41 Sweden
2.98 Denmark
2.92 Germany
2.84 Austria
2.80 Slovenia
2.26 France
2.24 Belgium
2.18 Estonia
2.16 Netherlands

1.88 Czech R.
1.72 UK
1.72 Ireland
1.65 Norway
1.50 Portugal
1.30 Hungary
1.30 Spain
1.27 Italy
1.12 Russia

0.99 Serbia
0.90 Poland
0.82 Slovakia
0.75 Croatia
0.69 Greece
0.66 Latvia
0.64 Bulgaria
0.49 Romania

Source:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS

Kudos to Slovenia, which confirms itself as the success story of Southern/Eastern Europe.

Surprise: compared to Greece, Portugal is in a similar economic misery but spends more than double in R&D. Which forecasts a higher growth potential in the future.

Italy lags behind Spain, dangerously close to Russia and the Slavic/Balkanic third tier. No good omen if you ask me.

[Bell Beaker]

One of the things that it fucks our economy is the lack of Portuguese multinational and sucessful worldwide Companies.