Bilbao’s titanium success
By Elisabeth Lang; ETN; April 6 2012
(eTN) - Located in the north of Spain, on the Bay of Biscay, Bilbao is the fourth largest city in Spain with 353,187 inhabitants and is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain.
Bilbao has one of the country’s most important ports. In the past, it had a huge merchant fleet and was the heart of Spain’s mining industry, metallurgy, as well as banking and insurance center during the nineteenth century.
With the closure of mining companies, shipping companies that were once so proud during the 80s in the city of Bilbao went into a deep depression. In the late 1980s, the Basque authorities embarked on a very ambitious plan, which kicked off with great success as time showed.