Economy
Two main sources of wealth in Chania are agriculture and tourism. A big portion of the city's residents (not necessarily farmers) own from few to many decares of agricultural land where several plants are being cultivated, the most popular ones being olive trees and citrus. Other important products include wine, avocados, dairy etc. Apart from the traditional ways of cultivation, some of the producers have concentrated on practicing new methods in order to promote organic food. The organization of the Agricultural August has been a recent attempt to promote local quality products including a series of activities organised by the Prefecture of Chania since 1999 and has proved very successful.
On the other hand, tourism has developed rapidly during the last decades, starting from the early 1970s. Nowadays the tertiary sector is becoming more and more important for the locals, since an increasing number of them are participating in the business. Agrotourism and ecotourism are forms of tourism which are significantly developing lately.
There is also some secondary industry with focus on the processing-packaging of the agricultural products (some of them export oriented) or manufacture products that support the agricultural production. On the other hand, the growth and development of academic/research institutions in Chania is a challenge for future economic activities by taking advantage of the specialised knowledge of scientists and technicians and by also reinforcing quality tourism (conferences etc.).
An important centre of the economic activities in the town is the Chania Chamber of Commerce and Industry (E.B.E.X.) .
Read more about this topic: Chania
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)