SEAT and Barcelona will strengthen their bonds

Martorell (CNA).- Barcelona’s Mayor, Jordi Hereu, visited this morning the SEAT factory in Martorell, next to the Catalan capital. The former Spanish company, that is now owned by the German car company Volkswagen, is the first industry in Catalonia as it represents 5% of the Catalan GDP. Hereu engaged to work with the car manufacturer and set up collaboration agreements to recover from the current economic crisis. In this sense, he has offered the car industry directors with “the values of Barcelona” and the name of the city, “which is one of the greatest brands in the world”, affirmed Hereu. The Mayor’s idea is that Barcelona could become a tool for international projection and could help to define how the car industry would look like in the future.
SEAT, which is owned by Volkswagen, has one of its largest factories in Martorell, some 15 km west of Barcelona. Barcelona’s Mayor, Jordi Hereu, visited the factory to learn about the company’s future projects and to set a common frame of dialogue and collaboration between SEAT and the city of Barcelona.

Hereu ensured that Barcelona will always support companies such as SEAT that bet for a change of the productive model based on “innovation, design and sustainability”, said the Catalan capital’s Mayor. In this sense, Hereu insisted that Barcelona share these ideals with SEAT. He also offered “help” to the company with whatever the city can do, working together to face the current economic crisis.

Jordi Hereu underlined that the city “owes a lot to SEAT”. He expressed his pride as Barcelona’s Mayor to offer the company the values of the city to define “an old but at the same time new car industry”.

The President of SEAT, Jame Miur, pointed out the importance that the company has for the Catalan economy, as well as the Spanish. Miur defined SEAT as “the back bone of the country”. He highlighted that the company does all of its production in Catalonia, contributing up to 5% of the Catalan GDP.

Miur reminded that SEAT is a company “open to the world” and with “international projection”, which is present in more than 70 markets in the world and acts as an ambassador of Barcelona’s culture. In this sense, he stressed that in such difficult times, the entire society must pull together in order to move forward towards recovery.

Hereu visited the place where the Exeo model is produced and, afterwards, he was able to look at the new family of cars that SEAT is preparing to launch into the market in a couple of years time.