This action represents the beginning of the provincial expansion and expansion of the Free Trade Zone, which in a period of 3-5 years will be the first industrial focus of the province.
Jorge Ramos foresees the installation of companies in the fiscal area during the first quarter of 2015 and contemplates a total direct job creation of 300-400
The Cádiz Free Trade Zone Consortium will receive a total of 10 million euros in Reindustrialization Funds granted by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism for the implementation of the new tax facility in El Fresno (Los Barrios). The financing support from the National Government following the request made in August by the Free Trade Zone is essential for the development of this action, allowing the acquisition of between 70,000 m2 and 100,000 m2 of sector 1 of El Fresno, where the tax facility will be located in the Bahía de Algeciras Logistics Area.
The approval of the Reindus aid occurs just one month after the signing of the agreement between the Free Trade Zone and the Public Agency of Ports of Andalusia, which was signed by the State delegate of the Consortium, Jorge Ramos, and the managing director of the Public Agency of Ports of Andalusia, Miguel Angel Paneque, and which allowed the aforementioned acquisition of land.
The Cádiz Free Trade Zone has advanced in all the steps that will allow the enhancement of the new facility to become a reality in a few months. In fact, waiting only for a specific modification of the PGOU requested by the regional Administration itself, the intention and forecast of the Consortium is that during the first quarter of 2015 the first companies will be installed on said land. In this sense, the Free Trade Zone has been working for months on attracting companies for the new facility, work that is bearing fruit with the interest and commitment shown by 3-4 logistics operators, for whom work is already underway on the projects in order to speed up the procedures. These operators value the implementation of their activity on land with a strategic location, since the site will be located next to the Northern access to the Port of Algeciras and at the foot of the road communication with Seville and Madrid and the Mediterranean corridor, which makes it the most important hinterland of the Port of Algeciras.
The Free Trade Zone's forecast for job creation is between 300 and 400 direct jobs and a direct and induced investment of more than 50 million euros.
For its part, the regional Administration is also advancing in the procedures it is responsible for to carry out the action, and thus the Department of Development and Housing has put out to tender the construction of an electrical substation in the Bahía de Algeciras Logistics Area, with a budget of three million euros and a period of nine months for the execution of the works. A total of 18 companies have been presented for the construction of a 66/15 kilovolt electrical substation and all the equipment necessary for its operation, including both civil works and transformers and protections, with the aim of facilitating the energy supply of the new logistics, industrial and transport services projects that will be implemented in sector 1 (El Fresno), and therefore, the future tax area of the Free Zone
Expansion and expansion plan in the Campo de Gibraltar
In fact, the creation of a new tax precinct in Los Barrios represents the starting point of the large expansion and expansion project to the entire province in which Zona Franca is immersed and, especially, in the Bay of Algeciras, where it plans to have a surface area of tax precincts exceeding 300,000 m2, in which new productive spaces will be created for the establishment of companies, taking advantage of the customs and tax advantages of a tax precinct and thus intensify its competitiveness in the Campo de Gibraltar area and, practically, “at the foot of the boat.”” of the great Port of Algeciras.
In the Bay of Algeciras, Zona Franca will expand in the municipality of Algeciras, on the land of Los Pastores-Cortijo Real, an action for which a “Review of the partial plans of sector 8 Los Pastores and 9 Cortijo Real de Algeciras” was already presented a few months ago” to concentrate the land and achieve a closed and unified area of about 130,000 m2 that complies with the legal determinations required from a tax and customs point of view. In parallel, contacts will be established with Endesa to propose solutions that allow the electricity supply in the future site.
For its part, in La Línea Zona Franca it maintains contacts with the City Council to find a location for the future tax precinct, creating an important logistics area for distribution and production that will increase the economic activity of the area and will propose an alternative to the problems of Gibraltar.
This ambitious plan to expand and consolidate the Tax Precinct in different municipalities of the province, once the capital's Precinct is already 97% filled, will ensure that the Free Zone takes a qualitative and quantitative leap as a dynamic instrument for the Cadiz economy, quadrupling its land that will go from the 330,000 m2 that its current Tax Precinct has to more than 1,300,000 m2, which will allow it to In 3-5 years, the Free Trade Zone becomes the first industrial focus of the province.