The Government approves the Reindustrialization Plan endowed with 400 million to avoid other Alcoa
MadridUpdated:
The Council of Ministers approved this Friday the Reindustrialization Program and Strengthening of Industrial Competitiveness, known as Reindus, endowed with 400 million euros and expected to generate around a thousand new jobs.
The Government has expressed its desire that this new call for the program, whose objective is to promote industrial development and the creation of employment in the sector, corresponding to 2018, achieve an induced investment of 560 million euros and that generates around a thousand new jobs, taking into account the results of the calls made from 2013 to 2017.
In that period, they were granted, through Reindus, grants worth more than 2,174 million euros, with an induced investment of 3,066 million, and 5,451 jobs were generated in Spain, according to data from the Ministry of Industry.
The Reindus Plan grants loans for projects of acquisition of industrial fixed assets, as construction of industrial buildings, buildings, machinery or equipment; the creation of new industrial establishments (including relocation), the relocation of industrial establishments and the modernization or adaptation of production lines. The loans have an interest rate of 1,647% at ten years, with three deficiency, in which no interest is paid.
The program also aims to encourage industrial investment in areas threatened by depopulation, promote the incorporation of 4.0 industry technology and promote the sustainability of industrial activity contributing to the development of the circular economy. In addition, it includes, as an additional line, investments for the productive implementation of technology from the Connected Industry 4.0.
«Rebalancing» the Spanish economy
The vice president of the Government, Carmen Calvo, has indicated, in the press conference after the Council of Ministers, that Spain has to work hard for the industry to have a weight of 20% in the Spanish GDP, something that has said that it is very important to "rebalance" an economy that is "very oversized" in the service sector. He added that the current Executive met with a «Abandoned program» of this line of 400 million and has warned that this line of financing could be "lost and lost was".
Both large companies and SMEs may submit projects to this call, for which they have until January 31, 2019. In addition, it makes available to companies the Industry Financing service, a free advice line prior to the submission of applications, in which the Ministry of Industry will work jointly with the autonomous communities.
In a statement, the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, said that Reindus is part of a more ambitious strategy to support the industry and it is an important step to reach the objective of increasing the weight of the industry to 20% of GDP. In Spain, industry accounts for 16.3% of GDP, lower than the European Union (EU) average, which is 17.6%.
The weight of the industry in the Spanish GDP is far from that of countries like Ireland (33.8%) or Germany (23.6%), and is comparable to Portugal, where it amounts to 16%.
Salaries in the sector in Spain are 17% higher than the average of the economy and they have shown a better behavior during the crisis, with better working conditions than in the other sectors.
In Spain the distribution of industry in the territory is very unequal, with differences of more than 20 points percentage in the contribution to the GDP of each autonomous community, and the total turnover of the sector in Spain amounts to 572,000 million euros, with a figure of 2.3 million employees.
