1. 1. Economic activity.

Economic activity: the combination of tasks undertaken by people in order to obtain the goods required to meet their needs.
There are two types of goods:

• Material: food, manufactured items.
• Inmaterial (services): education and health care.

Market: is where commodities, merchandise and other goods are sold, bought and exchanged.

1. 2. Components of economic activity.

There are three basic components in the economic activity:

• Production, the combined number of goods that result from economic activity.
• Distribution, the transfer of products to consumers and their sale in the market.
• Consumption is the use of the goods that result from production.

1. 3. Sectors of economic activity.

Economic activities are grouped into economic sectors: range of activities with a number of shared features. There are three:

• Primary sector, includes activities concerned with the extracction of natural resources. These are are agriculture, livestock farming, forestry and fishing.
• Secondary sector, transformation of the natural resocurces provided by the primary sector, such industry.
• Terciary sector comprises activities that provide services. Includes transport, tourism, trade, education, health care.

According to the importance of these sectors there are huge contrasts around the world:

• The primary sector has greater importance in less developed countries.
  The secondary sector is important in the so-called emerging countries.
  The terciary sector dominates in the most developed countries.