The Plenary Session of the Consortium definitively approves the 2019 accounts after the validation of an auditing company and the General State Intervention (IGAE)
The data collected in this document confirms the economic balance in 2019 and the weight in the final result of the financial debt inherited by the entity
In 2019, the Cádiz Free Trade Zone achieved an EBITDA (Operating Result before amortizations and impairments) of 3.9 million euros, which practically doubles this figure compared to the previous year, when it amounted to 2.1 million. This indicator is very important for the management carried out, since it shows a greater capacity to generate profits relying solely on one's own activity.
This is one of the economic achievements included in the accounts of the Cádiz Free Zone Consortium that have been approved today by the Plenary Session of the institution and that confirm the first approximations made in the initial formulation, in the first quarter of 2020, which indicated that this organization had reached economic balance after years of recording negative figures. Thus, during 2019 operating results close to balance (-€258,668) have been presented compared to the negative €2.1M in 2018.
This has been possible, mainly, due to the 3% increase in the Free Zone's turnover, based on an improvement in income and the reduction of accounting impairments.
Despite the data that shows good management during the 2019 financial year, the accounts overall show losses of 8.7 million euros, results that are conditioned by the weight in the accounts of financial expenses (€8.7M) inherited from previous managements and whose main problem is the interest generated by the debt of the REINDUS funds and bank loans.
The final approval of these annual accounts of the Free Trade Zone Consortium occurs during a Plenary Session of the entity and after their validation by an auditing company and the General State Intervention (IGAE), which has issued a report with a considerable reduction in the observations that it had been making year after year. In fact, the delay in this double validation process, caused by the special circumstances of the paralysis of administrative procedures due to COVID, has been the cause of the accounts being brought for approval later than usual.
All of this indicates that the management carried out and the Sanitation Plan implemented by the current managers of the Consortium is giving results. They confirm an increase in working capital and net worth, which indicates that the Free Zone has entered the correct path.
The Consortium is carrying out important work to optimize resources as much as possible and meet the objectives of the Sanitation Plan. The reinforcement and promotion of the Commercial Area and the potential represented by the two great milestones of 2021, the launch of the Bahía de Algeciras Tax Precinct, in Campo de Gibraltar and the development of the Base Zone project in Cádiz capital, with the blue economy incubator financed by Feder Funds, will mean an increase in the turnover that will be reflected in the coming years.