Key Economic and Industrial Terms

Posted on Mar 18, 2025 in Geography

Economic Concepts

  • Economy: System that organizes the use of a country’s resources.
  • Economic System: Way a society organizes its economy.
  • Economic Agent: Person, group, or institution that activates the economy.
  • Globalization: A process of integration that affects economic, political, and cultural systems across geographical boundaries.
  • Resource: Thing a person or country has that can be used for economic benefit.
  • Goods: Objects that have a use or value for the person who possesses them.
  • Factor of Production: Resource used to produce goods or offer services.
  • Supply (suministro): Goods and services that are available for sale.
  • Demand: Goods and services that consumers want to buy.
  • Unemployment Benefit (beneficio de desempleo): Money unemployed people receive from the government.
  • Teleworking: Working from home or another location using telecommunications to communicate with the company.
  • Trade Union (gremio): Organization that defends workers’ rights.
  • Collective Agreement (convenio colectivo): Contract that sets out the working conditions for employees that have been agreed upon between trade unions and employers’ associations. Both employers and employees must fulfill their sides of the agreement.
  • ICT (Information and Communication Technology): Technologies for collecting, storing, processing, analyzing, and transmitting information (e.g., mobile telephone).
  • Multinational: Company or organization that operates in several or many different countries.
  • Trade: Activities related to buying and selling goods and services.
  • Tariff: Tax on a product imported from another country.
  • UN (United Nations): International organization that was founded in 1945. It has 192 member states and promotes world peace and international cooperation.

Industry and Production

  • Secondary Sector: Economic sector that consists of construction and industry.
  • Raw Material: Resource that is transformed into finished or semi-finished products by means of an industrial process.
  • Energy Source (fuente de energía): Natural resource that provides the necessary power to operate machines.
  • Finished Product: Industrial product that is ready for consumption.
  • Semi-finished Product: Industrial product used as raw material in other industries.
  • Concrete (hormigón): Very hard building material made by mixing small stones, sand, water, and cement.
  • Microchip: Small piece of silicon with an electronic circuit inside, used in computers and other machines.
  • Quarry (cantera): Mining operation where rocks and similar materials for construction are extracted from open ground.
  • Industrial Rock: Generic term for materials like clay, sand, gravel, and limestone that are used as raw materials for industry or for construction.
  • Metal Mining: Extracting minerals with a high metal content from the ground (e.g., gold, silver, iron).
  • Aquaculture (acuicultura): Farming of salt and freshwater fish, shellfish, and plants.
  • Dehesa: Grassland with trees; some of the trees are cut so that animals can graze and crops can be grown.
  • Esparto Grass: Plant with long, tough leaves used to make rope, fiber mats, and pulp for paper.
  • Pulses (legumbres): Vegetables like peas, beans, and lentils.
  • Industrial Crop: Crop that is grown to be processed by industries like food and textile.
  • Fodder Crop (cultivos forrajeros): Crop cultivated for animal feed.