The delegate of the Consortium, Fran González, has received at the Headquarters four representatives of the Alentejo Regional Development Agency (ADRAL), Sines Tecnopolo and the City Council of Santiago do Cacém, within the framework of a business mission to Andalusia
The visit is part of the interest of Portuguese entities to learn about the Incubazul project of the Cádiz Consortium and to be able to take references and create connections with its “Alentejo Azul” initiative, also focused on qualified entrepreneurship linked to the sea.
The Portuguese delegation has completed its visit to the Tax Precinct of the Free Zone of Cádiz with a tour of the facilities of the Cetárea del Sur plant, recently expanded, and a reference in the province of Cádiz in the marketing and distribution of live crustaceans and mollusks
Fran González thanked the visit to the Cadiz capital and called on us to “keep open the lines of collaboration with the Portuguese region to establish synergies and share models and references in support of the creation and consolidation of companies in the marine sector.”
It should be noted that both the Incubazul project and the Portuguese “Alentejo Azul” project are co-financed by European funds.
Cadiz, March 16, 2022
A delegation from the Portuguese Alentejo and made up of different development entities from the region has visited the Cádiz Free Trade Zone this afternoon with the aim of learning first-hand about projects and actions that are being developed around the Blue Economy in Andalusia and especially attracted by the High-tech incubator project, Incubazul, of the Consortium.
With this premise, the State delegate in the Cádiz Consortium, Fran González, and part of his management team have held a working meeting at the Headquarters of the fiscal Institution with the four Portuguese representatives who have presented the “Alentejo Azul” initiative, which aims to promote a qualified and creative entrepreneurial network in the Alentejo region, supporting new ideas linked to the sea and water resources, promoting the creation and consolidation of new companies with more innovation and diversification with the in order to achieve the competitive improvement of said Portuguese region.
The Portuguese delegation was made up of Tiago Santos and Joel Gomes, executive and financial director of Sines Tecnópolo; Anabela Caeiro, manager of the Alentejo Azul project for the Alentejo Regional Development Agency (ADRAL); and Joaquim Pinheiro, from the City Council of Santiago de Cacém, a Portuguese city in the District of Setúbal.
The four representatives have agreed to point out that, given the connections and joint objectives of the “Alentejo Azul” project with the initiative of the Cádiz Consortium, Incubazul, they have wanted to contact and travel to the Fiscal Precinct of Cádiz to learn first-hand all the details of the launch of the incubator and to analyze and take references that allow the improvement of their processes and ideas in support of promoting qualified entrepreneurship linked to the sea and water resources.
In this sense, Fran González was grateful that the Portuguese delegation has chosen the Cádiz Free Trade Zone as a model of its commitment to the Blue Economy in the province during its visit to Andalusia and as a meeting point to establish a space for shared knowledge in relation to this sector, one of the benchmarks of the Cádiz economy and which also stands out in the Portuguese region.
After a presentation of the history of the Free Zone, its connection with the sea, the current lines of management and a complete presentation of the Base Zone project and its technological incubator, Incubazul, the Consortium delegate encouraged "keeping open the lines of collaboration with the neighboring region of Alentejo to share and complement models in support of the creation and consolidation of startups and companies in the marine sector."
For González, "today's visit is a source of pride for the Free Trade Zone because we confirm that Cádiz is consolidating itself as a reference pole in the Blue Economy and that our technological incubator is a focus of opportunity to attract technological talent both from the province and from other parts of the national and international panorama, with the added value of having the support of Telefónica in the project acceleration program."
“We reaffirm our commitment to a new, more sustainable model committed to the environment, championed by Incubazul and by all the opportunities offered by the marine sector – which covers subsectors as diverse as biotechnology, regenerative tourism, maritime and port transport, aquaculture or traditional fishing gear, among many other applications – and which position it as one of the great focuses of employability for the coming decades in Andalusia and throughout Europe,” explained the Zona delegate. Franca, who has also placed the visit in the context of the excellent relations that the Government of Spain and Portugal also maintain.
During the work meeting, everyone agreed to point out the importance of the support of the European Union for the development of these initiatives since the “Alentejo Azul” project is promoted by the aforementioned ADRAL and Sines Tecnopolo, with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund within the framework of the ALENTEJO 2020 program; and Incubazul, as is known, has the support of the EU that co-finances it, through the INCYDE Foundation, 80% by the ERDF within the Pluriregional Operational Program 2014-2020 within axis 3: Improve the Competitiveness of SMEs, Thematic Objective 3 Improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises, and investment priority 3 Promotion of entrepreneurship, in particular, facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas, and promoting the creation of new companies, also through incubators.
Visit to Cetárea del Sur
The presence of the Portuguese delegation in the Fiscal Area of the Free Trade Zone of Cádiz has been completed with the visit to the plant of the company Cetárea del Sur, which has recently expanded its facilities and is a reference in the province in the marketing and distribution of live crustaceans and mollusks.
The tour of the new facilities, which have gone from 365 m2 to 730 m2, has been guided by Irene Sánchez de Sardi, co-founder of the firm together with Ana Parrabano, who has shown all the details of the company's operations, explaining all the technical details and the improvement in the capacity of the pool area to keep crustaceans and mollusks alive, as well as the new mollusk purification line.
The representatives of the Alentejo have been especially interested in learning first-hand about Cetárea's commitment to Innovation in processes, which has involved an investment of close to 700,000 euros.
Thus, they have highlighted the capacity of this new machinery that allows for two lines of work: on the one hand, the maintenance of live crustaceans and mollusks in the pool area, which has a capacity for 3,000 kg per day; and, above all, the new mollusk purification line, with a capacity for 20,000 kg per day, also implementing the system called innopure in a closed circuit, which cleans bacteria and organic matter from the mollusk naturally.
With today's visit, Cádiz reaffirms its great potential in the blue sector and establishes itself as a hub of opportunity to attract, capture and consolidate all the talent of national and European startups.