The delegate of the Cádiz Consortium has participated in the panel “Spanish economic zones: a space of opportunities” in which he has exchanged experiences and agreed on lines of work to add strengths with the delegates from Vigo, Barcelona, Gran Canaria and Tenerife
"Our Free Trade Zone, almost a century old, was born as an heir to the foreign trade of which Cádiz was the gateway throughout the 18th century. Three centuries later, our strategic location remains intact and is one of our potential as a logistics hub," González explained during his speech at this international forum.
Previously, Fran González and part of his team have visited the 3D Incubator and learned about the DFactory Barcelona initiative, tools that, like the Cádiz-based Incubazul, enhance an ecosystem for attracting talent and promote entrepreneurship based on technology.
The Free Trade Zone of Cádiz has been present at this international event in Barcelona in order to continue promoting commercial and institutional actions that project its assets and attract new investments to the province of Cádiz.
Wednesday, October 6, 2021
The second day of the Cádiz Free Zone in the Barcelona New Economy Week has developed an intense agenda of visits, meetings and presentations with the focus on projecting the potential of Cádiz and its productive spaces as a strategic area for attracting new investments.
The State delegate in the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz, Fran González, has participated with a presentation on the BNEW channel New Economic Zones and in a panel titled “Spanish Economic Zones: A space of opportunities”, in which he has shared an intervention with his namesakes from Barcelona, Pere Navarro; from Vigo, David Reigades; from Gran Canaria, Gabriel Corujo; from Tenerife, Margarita Pena, and the CEO of the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium, Blanca Sorigué; in a panel that was presented by Ruth Gumbau.
During his presentation, González detailed the strengths of Cádiz and its Free Zone, teaching the great tool it represents for the promotion of foreign trade and internationalization and pointing out "its strategic location as a hallmark to grow and establish itself as one of the first-level strategic areas within the Andalusian and entire country's logistics map."
The Cádiz delegate explained that "our Free Trade Zone, almost a century old, was born as an heir to the foreign trade of which Cádiz was the gateway throughout the 18th century, when we centralized all traffic due to our unbeatable location. Three centuries later, our strategic location has not changed, which makes us look directly at Africa, America and being a transit point for the main world maritime routes."
Fran González added that this already important potential of the Cádiz tax precinct will be multiplied in the immediate future with the launch of the Bahía de Algeciras Tax Precinct, a 130,000 m2 logistics space that will share synergies with the large port of Algeciras and will multiply the competitiveness of and the advantages for the internationalization of the Campo-Gibraltar region.
The delegate of the Cádiz Free Trade Zone has stressed the importance of “this type of high-profile meeting being a focus for publicizing the potential of Cádiz and its wide range of possibilities and opportunities to grow and establish itself as one of the top-level strategic areas within the logistics map of Andalusia and the entire country.”
In this sense, the presence of representatives from other Spanish free zones and the success of this event in Barcelona has encouraged González to explain that it is essential to encourage, even more if possible, the union of forces of all Spanish free zones, sharing strategies and setting common objectives, in order to project this union abroad and increase competitiveness with the sum of the specialties of each one. "We have a common goal: to boost the economy of our areas of influence. Therefore, it is important that we work together to unify our presence in national and international forums because together we are more competitive and cover more services and opportunities," González stressed.
This climate of collaboration could be confirmed hours before the holding of this panel with the visit of the Cádiz delegate and part of his management team to the “3D incubator”, the technological incubator developed by the Barcelona Free Trade Zone and the DFactory Barcelona initiative. Both projects share the essence of the technological incubator developed by the Consortium in Cádiz to promote the Blue Economy, Incubazul, although each one stands out for its specialization, the one in Barcelona being additive manufacturing and the one in Cádiz, the maritime sector.
Both the Catalan incubator and Incubazul are part of the network of High Technology incubators of the INCYDE Foundation of the Chambers of Commerce, with financing from the FEDER Funds, which are proving to be a fundamental tool in the transfer of R&D to companies.
During the visit, the Cádiz delegation was able to see first-hand the operation and how an ecosystem for attracting talent, technology and investments is developed in a unique space. In addition, they have exchanged experiences to advance the development of Incubazul as a space of opportunity for entrepreneurship, ensuring that ideas are developed until they take shape as business units capable of generating wealth in society.
International meeting with the Argentine Free Trade Zone of Bahía Blanca
Along with the presence of the Spanish free zones at the BNEW, it should be noted that this second edition has reached 80% internationality, with the presence of attendees from 145 countries, highlighting the positioning of the economic zones of Latin America. In this sense, during Tuesday's day, Fran González held a working meeting with Lisandro Ganuza, director of the World Free Zone and the Argentine Free Zone of Bahía Blanca+Coronel Rosales, a meeting in which they exchanged projects and in which both agreed to explore the possibility of opening lines of joint work that promote synergies on both sides of the Atlantic.
This second day completes an active participation of the Cádiz Free Zone in this reference event of the new economy held in the city of Barcelona, in which Fran González was present along with representatives of other Spanish free zones since the opening session, complemented by the participation of the deputy coordinator of Incubazul in the discussion table on high-tech incubators that was also held on Tuesday.
The second edition of BNEW is bringing together 11,000 companies in Barcelona, of which more than 1,000 are start-ups. The complete hybrid program – physical and digital – in which more than 200 sessions equivalent to 240 hours of content will be held is generating contacts between all those attending the event, being the only large multi-sector event that allows synergies between companies and professionals from very diverse activities, but always with innovation as a unifying point.