Key findings from the World Co-operative Monitor 2015
The co-operative sector continued to grow in 2013
The fourth edition of the World Co-operative Monitor, analyzing data from 2013, highlights the size and importance of the co-operative sector across the globe.
The overall database this year exceeds all past editions reaching 2,829 co-operatives from 76 countries with a total turnover of 2,950.82 billion US dollars.
In 2013 we see an overall increase in the total turnover of the Top 300 co-operatives and mutual organisations. The largest 300 co-operatives and mutuals report a total turnover of 2,360.05 billion US dollars in 2013 compared with 2,205.70 billion US dollars the previous year.
This morning Gianluca Salvatori, Euricse’s CEO, presented the new edition of the World Co-operative Monitor during the plenary session of the ICA Global Conference, in Antalya.
The average turnover of the Top 300 has increased by 0.52 billion US dollars to 7.87 billion US dollars in 2013 from 7.35 billion US dollars in 2012 and the value of the turnover of the 300th cooperative has increased to 1.47 billion US dollars in the 2013 ranking from 1.26 billion US dollars in that of 2012.
This year, 40% of the Top 300 are in the insurance sector while 32% are agriculture and food industry co-operatives. In all, the total turnover of the Top 300 co-operatives and mutuals represents 80% of the turnover of the entire dataset.
The ranking by turnover to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita highlights the relevance of cooperatives in their country.
The agriculture and food industries sector
In recent years much attention has focused globally on agriculture and food systems policies and practices. However, despite the large share of agricultural production around the world organized in the co-operative form, data on this type of enterprise is still scarce.
The World Co-operative Monitor data helps fill at least part of this gap.
In the special section focused on the agriculture and food industries sector, the economic relevance of the top agricultural cooperatives is analysed. The data show an increase in total turnover of the top 30 cooperatives in the Agriculture and Food Industries sector from 328.42 billion US dollars in 2011 to 410.53 billion US dollars in 2013, notwithstanding the global economic crisis over these years.
The special section dedicated to the agriculture and food industries sector is included in the World Co-operative Monitor full report.
The World Co-operative Monitor is an initiative promoted by the International Co-operative Alliance, with the scientific and technical support of Euricse.
The 2015 report was produced by a team of researchers at Euricse with the scientific support of a committee of international experts and scientists and made possible with the support of our organizational partners: Fundación Espriu and OCB System.
More information on the World Co-operative Monitor project are available on Euricse’s website.
The Executive summary is available in English, Italian, French and Spanish.
Download the World Co-operative Monitor report 2015.
