The Catalan Government attracted 37% more foreign investment in 2012 than in the previous year

Barcelona (ACN).- 47 foreign investment industrial projects, bringing in €331.88 million, landed in Catalonia last year through ‘Invest in Catalonia’, a programme from the Catalan Government. The investment amount is 37% larger than that in 2011, as was announced on Monday by the Catalan Business and Employment Ministry. The 47 projects created 2,324 new jobs and they also allowed companies to keep 2,566 positions. The investment from Germany, France and Japan were those creating more jobs. Furthermore, 33% of the jobs are in the Information and Communication Technologies sector and 28.5% in the automotive sector. Besides, also on Monday, the Spanish Ministry for the Economy and Competitiveness announced that the total foreign investment in Spain dropped by 43%. However, in Catalonia the reduction was only 14%. The Catalan Business Minister, Felip Puig, explained that the Spanish Ministry data includes financial investments, while the ‘Investment in Catalonia’ figures only takes into account industrial and manufacturing projects. In this vein, Puig emphasised that the Spanish Ministry’s data also stated that industrial and manufacturing investments in Catalonia increased by 6.2% and 11% respectively. Furthermore, Puig emphasised that Catalonia’s self-determination process does not affect foreign investment.

The Catalan Government’s programme ‘Investment in Catalonia’, which has a network of offices in markets worldwide, managed to attract 47 foreign investment industrial projects to Catalonia. They represented €331.88 million, 37% more than the investment volume attracted in 2011. Puig stated that the data “is very positive”, especially taking into account the country’s economic situation and the fact that the Catalan Government has no power to offer fiscal incentives to attract companies, as the Basque Country and Navarro do since they have specific economic agreement with Spain. Therefore, according to him, foreign companies decide to invest in Catalonia because they value the technical business entourage, the qualified labour force, the “good institutional entourage” fostering entrepreneurship and the quality of the infrastructure network, despite some things that are “lacking” such as the premium railway connections with the Barcelona Port and Airport.

German, French and Japanese companies lead the foreign investment ranking

The Catalan Business Minister mentioned some of the international companies that decided to invest in Catalonia in 2012. He mentioned Coty, Henkel, Louis Vuitton, Ricoh and NTT, among many others. Looking at the countries of origin and the amount of jobs created or maintained, German companies lead the foreign investment ranking. German enterprises brought in 980 jobs, 20% of the total created or secured by new foreign investment. They are followed by the French (926 jobs), Japanese (694), North-Americans (267) and Swiss. Puig wanted to highlight the “strategic” prioritisation done by the successive Catalan Government Cabinets to attract investment from far-away markets such as Japan’s.

Information and Communication Technologies companies created a third of the new jobs

Looking at production sectors, companies from the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector created 1,598 jobs, representing 33% of the total. They are followed by companies from the automation sector (1,366 jobs), the textile and fashion one (495), agri-food (297) and chemical (193). The Catalan Business Minister linked the high weight of ICT enterprises to the Mobile World Congress and its traction role. The MWC has taken place each year in Barcelona since 2006. In addition, the Catalan capital was declared the world’s capital city for mobile technologies and it will host a world regulator, an international business and knowledge hub and a technological and cultural festival, among other projects. Besides the companies developing their business activities in relation to the mobile industry, Puig also emphasised other traditionally strong industrial clusters set in Catalonia, such as the automation, textile, agri-food and chemical industries. The Catalan Minister also pointed out that the 2012 data does not take into account the investment announced last September worth billions to build ‘BCN World’, a huge beach and holiday resort with casinos, theme parks, golf courses, theatres and convention centres in the Costa Daurada Salou, next to PortAventura amusement park and Tarragona. This investment was not included in the list since the project has not started building yet, a step expected to happen in early autumn 2013.

Good prospects for 2013

Furthermore, foreign investment is experiencing positive behaviour in the first months of 2013. 18 new projects have already been attracted by ‘Investment in Catalonia’, representing €90 million. These projects have created 902 new jobs and have ensured the continuation of 1,483 other positions. Puig wanted to emphasise the projects of Booking.com, Europastry, Fluvitex, Nissan and Novartis.

Catalonia’s self-determination does not affect foreign investment, according to Puig

Looking at the 2012 and 2013 results, in Catalonia and also for the whole of Spain, Puig emphasised that Catalonia’s self-determination project has not stopped or decreased foreign investment, “quite the other way round” if a relation between both elements has to be established. Furthermore, Puig insisted that Catalonia needs better tools to attract a greater volume of foreign investment. Some of these tools include having its own Treasury, ensuring that the Catalan Government collects all taxes generated in Catalonia. In addition, the Catalan Executive should be allowed to implement fiscal incentives when attracting foreign companies and should have a greater say in the prioritisation and definition of infrastructures or in energy policies. According to Puig, Catalonia’s self-determination “is a debate to ensure a radical respect to democracy” and is also “an industrialist” debate, in order to provide Catalan citizens with their own tools to better define economic and industrial policies. In this sense, the Minister explained that Catalonia will keep its international network of offices in order to continue to attract investment from other markets and assist Catalan companies in finding new markets for their products at an international level. In this vein, Puig lamented “some distortions” by some members of the Spanish diplomacy regarding the work of these offices. He insisted that they “will not allow them to be “be absorbed” by Spanish offices and they will insist on keeping Catalonia’s own network that has proven to be useful for the economy.