Main economic features

Thriving towns in rural setting
Cornwall's population has been growing faster than all but four other UK counties, and stood at 501,267 in 2001. A relatively high proportion still lives in small towns and rural villages. The county has ten towns with over 10,000 inhabitants: Truro, Falmouth, Penzance, Newquay, St Austell, Bodmin, Saltash, Camborne/Redruth and Helston. Although Bodmin is the traditional county capital, Truro has emerged as the sub-regional centre in terms of administration, shopping and professional services employment.

GVA of over £5bn
In 2003 Cornwall had GVA (gross value added) of £5.4 billion, up from £4.24 billion in 2000. Services made up the largest share followed by industry and agriculture. Within these broad categories the biggest contributors to GVA were retail (£672 million) and tourism (hotels and catering alone accounted for £562 million). Bucking the national trend, manufacturing contributed a healthy 10.9% of Cornwall's growth in this period. Within the manufacturing sector, food processing and the printing, publishing & media reproduction sectors both made important contributions, as did Cornwall's cluster of advanced engineering firms.

Rising employment and earnings
Unemployment levels in Cornwall have halved in recent years, from 3.7% in August 1999 to 1.8% in August 2006 (due to the seasonal nature of some jobs in the tourism sector, this figures is higher in winter months). In 2005, 18% of the workforce were self-employed, 5% above the UK average. The county also has a large percentage of part-time employees (36%) and female workers (54.5%). Per capita earnings in Cornwall grew by 30.9% in the 1999-2004 period, as against 24.8% nationally.

Cornwall connects
A highly successful roll-out campaign has seen Cornwall's broadband coverage shoot from zero in 2002 to 99% in 2007. Nearly 50% of businesses now have broadband connections and Cornwall has an overall broadband penetration rate of 40.2%, compared with 30.9% nationally.

Major expansion in higher education
Cornwall's education sector has grown rapidly in recent years, averaging 9.3% annual growth between 1995 and 2005. One of the most significant recent developments, set to have a major impact on the regional economy, came in 2004 when several highly respected educational institutions joined to form the new Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), centred on a state-of-the-art 'hub' campus at Tremough. As well as being able to draw on the skills of its graduates, many companies are already benefiting from the CUC's business incubation facilities.

All this translates into an economy that is exceptionally well positioned for success in the twenty-first century.