Spatial concentration of biomass production activities in the European Union

According to OECD experts, bioeconomics will represent the guiding principle of the European economy by the middle of this century. This means that focus will be on the biomass production in the agriculture, forestry and aquaculture as biomass will become the major source of industrial raw materials. The aims of this paper are to assess and compare the spatial concentration of biomass production sector across the European Union countries through applying a Location Quotient (LQ) technique to quantifying the relative importance of biomass production to each country economy compared to the whole European Union economy. We proceed as follows. Firstly, we used the gross value added (GVA) and biomass export to measure the LQ by kind of biomass production activities (such as agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture) and total activities across the European Union countries. Secondly, we have analyzed the LQ changes to identify medium-term shifts in spatial concentration of biomass production activities in the European Union. The Eurostat National accounts aggregates data by activity under NACE R2 and ITC Trade Map time series trade data was applied to empirical analysis. The findings indicated significant differences in relative concentration of biomass production activities and its shift across the European Union countriesBioekonomikos plėtros fakultetasVytauto Didžiojo universiteta