Catalonia, a friendly country for entrepreneurs?

Barcelona (CNA).- The economic crisis has forced Catalonia to begin a new era based on research, innovation and entrepreneurship and the Catalan Government is making serious efforts to make it easier for entrepreneurs to launch their projects. Cristina Pruñonosa, Manager of the Business Management Office of the Government of Catalonia, explains that since 2014 “any entrepreneur can create his or her company in 48 hours and anyone can set themself up as a self-employed worker at the moment”. The representative of the biggest business organisation in Catalonia, Maria Mora, evaluates positively the achievements of the Catalan Government but remarks that there is still room for improvement. Nonetheless, Pere Codom, the Director of Entrepreneurship from the Ministry for Business and Labour does not hesitate when hailing Catalonia as a “tremendously entrepreneurship friendly country”.

In recent months, Catalonia has focused on entrepreneurship as a way of escaping the economic crisis. Catalonia is the area within Spain with the most active companies, with no less than 18.5% of the total number, followed by Madrid and Andalucía, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report. 

Last year, Barcelona reached 7^th place on the list of 468 European cities with the best economic prospects. A study from the Barcelona Observatory produced by the Chamber of Commerce also ranked the city as the 19^th most competitive in the world and the 10^th in Europe.

But other figures show that there is still a lot of work to do in terms of entrepreneurship. Maria Mora, the Director of the Office of Business Creation from the largest employer’s organisation in Catalonia, Foment del Treball, explains that Spain is 73^rd on the list published by Doing Business about procedures for starting a company.   

Making procedures easier

Cristina Pruñonosa, Director of the Business Management Office of the Catalan Government, explains that since 2014 “any entrepreneur can create its business in 48 hours and anyone can set themself up as a self-employed worker at the moment”.

The problem is the kind of activity the business will develop. “It is true that activities that can be dangerous for the security of people’s health or the environment have to go through long procedures”, Pruñonosa says. Nonetheless, they are not the majority and 75% of the new business initiatives are innocuous or low-risk activities. “Currently, the Catalan Government is issuing a Bureaucracy Simplification Law that will establish a standard procedure for these innocuous activities”, she declares, “but at the moment it still depends on each City Council within Catalonia”.

However, while this new law is still pending, the Catalan Government is developing its One Stop Shop Office. “Between 2011 and 2014, the One Stop Shop Office has gone from 145 to 475 in terms of the number of procedures it can handle”, Pruñonosa explains. The Catalan Executive has also eliminated superfluous procedures and simplified the necessary ones. “The objective is that the entrepreneur can do everything at a single point, whereas before he had to go to many different places”, concludes Pruñonosa.

The Director Maria Mora evaluates positively the One Stop Shop Office. In particular, she welcomes the fact that all paperwork to be done to create a company can be made at a single point. The Catalan One Stop Shop Office is designed to be multi-channel and multi-administration, as it has a physical space in the Business Management Office in Barcelona and a website where anybody can do all the procedures from any public body. With the Bureaucracy Simplification Law, all City Councils from Catalonia will establish this kind of One Stop Shop Office.

However, Ignacio Puig, the young entrepreneur that launched Cypress Bikes, a company dedicated to producing urban fixed gear bikes, says that the Catalan One Stop Shop Office is not always a realistic solution. “In 48 hours you can have a company but without a corporate name”, he says, “you only have a number and, how can you present yourself to clients with just a number?” He believes that the procedures for creating a company in Catalonia are “not competitive compared to other countries, but it is a safe system and gives legal guarantees”.

Other ways to start a business

Instead of the One Stop Shop office, Puig went to an Attention Point for Entrepreneurs (APE), which, in his case, “was a law firm that helps entrepreneurs to launch their projects for very low fees”. “They also help you with your business plan”, he explains.

But big institutions also have their APEs. Maria Mora remarks that at her employer’s organisation they have one of them. “These points have contributed to speeding up the process of creating a company, especially in the case of self-employed workers”, she says, “but the unawareness of these services among society” still obstructs the creation of companies.

Pere Codom, the Director of Entrepreneurship at the Catalan Ministry for Business and Labour, explains that the APEs are part of a big net formed by 451 technicians that have helped to launch about 4,500 companies and 35,000 self-employed people in Catalonia.    

A big programme to help entrepreneurship

Since 2012, the Catalan Government has been promoting entrepreneurship with the programme “Catalunya emprèn”, which helps four types of company: small and medium-sized ones, start-ups, scientific companies and social entrepreneurship and co-operatives. A fifth sort of entrepreneurship that will be recognised soon according to Pere Codom is Corporate Venturing, a trend that has just arrived in Catalonia.

The net of APEs is part of this programme, but, as Codom insists, it just provides support for small and medium-sized enterprises. The main pillars of the programme are the five industrial incubators based in Catalonia. The Start Up Boot Camp set up in the 22@ district in Barcelona is the final pillar. “The collaboration with the City Council and the organisation of big events such as the Mobile World Congress, the 4 Years and the Smart Cities Congress are essential to attract these industrial incubators and big companies seeking for disruptive technologies”, Codom says.

“We contact them during these events and then we explain to them all the advantages of Barcelona and Catalonia”, the Director of Entrepreneurship states. “Public and private research, people’s talent and the complete business ecosystem make Catalonia an international hub for launching companies”, states Pere Codom.

Nevertheless, the Catalan Government also has a big funding branch in this programme to stimulate the emergence of scientific start-ups. As Codom explains, the plan Knowledge Industry promoted by the Government of Catalonia to favour the development of new scientific companies is one of the main examples. In its first phase, the plan will help the 20 best prototypes of scientific enterprise with 25,000 euros each. In the second phase, eight of the 20 initial prototypes will receive 150,000 euros to develop the project entirely and in a third phase, the plan will facilitate the commercialisation and production of the developed enterprises with 2 million euros to finance 20 projects in a semi-public regime that will distribute between 100,000 and 400,000 euros.

The tax framework is untouchable because it is set by the Spanish Government

Maria Mora considers it necessary to have a more favourable tax framework for new companies, “even though Catalonia does not have the legislative competence to do so”. Cristina Pruñonosa seems to agree with her. “It is very difficult for self-employed workers to receive benefits because of the great amount of taxes they have to pay, but, despite the help given by the Catalan Government, this is a matter that depends on Madrid”, she states.