-
The speakers at the Cercle conference agree on reinforcing local production to control pollution and reduce dependence on undemocratic countries
Plus industry It involves re-manufacturing things that were manufactured here years ago and are now manufactured on the other side of the world. reindustrialize goes through relocate. This has been one of the shared reflections and a call to the business community that has emerged from the days of the Circle of Economy held this Thursday in Barcelona. From large companies to SMEs they are aware that the progressive loss of industrial capacities that Spain -and the European continent in general- has experienced is an economic weakness and they have appealed to build industry 4.0 tending to kilometer zero.
The weight of the industry in the Catalan GDP has gone from 27% to 19.8% in the last 10 years and its volume is decreasing each year. This is a problem? In the eyes of the president of Pimec, Antoni Canete, yes, because “creating jobs in the industrial field is to make us richer” and losing them is losing wealth. Why has it occurred? One of the reasons pointed out by the president of the automobile company Gestamp, Francisco RiveraIt is because companies have saved costs by seeking lower wages in other countries and transferring pollution from part of their processes there. “We don’t have to give up the industry to feel comfortable,” criticized Ribera.
The shared objective between the Catalan employers, as well as between the unions and the Administration, is to reverse this downward trend in industrial GDP and reach 25% before 2030. “We have to manufacture more, better and closer”, declared the delegate of the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona, Peter Navarro. One of the litmus tests in this sense in which the former leader of the PSC is intervening is in the reindustrialization of the old nissan, where logistics projects and industrial projects compete to share land. The final result will mark if there end up moving more boxes than elements are manufactured there to fill them.
How to do it? “We have to bet on differentiation, training, innovation, digitization, […] not compete through lower wages”, affirmed the president of Gestamp. From another discussion table, the president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, Jose Luis Bonethas considered “essential” to accompany especially SMEs in any transformation process from business entities, employers and professional associations.
More control over contamination
Related news
Why resume part of those industrial processes that Europe was gradually exiling -with their respective costs- to other latitudes? The change in the energy model and the challenge of reducing the impacts on ecological footprint they are being two transverse axes of the Cercle conference and the industry has not been left out. “If we do things here, we can control them and reduce that carbon footprint in transport,” Ribera stressed. He has also asked to strengthen tariffs on products that have generated greater pollution in their production to avoid downward price competitions through a greater ecological footprint.
The ecological debate has also dominated the parliaments of other speakers, although on other matters. The president of Foment del Treball, Josep Sanchez Llibrehas replied to the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and has spoken out in favor of expanding the airport, on which the municipal leader said the day before “was not a priority.” Sánchez Llibre has also been in favor of the “freedom of citizens to take the car whenever they feel like it”, in relation to the low emissions zone promoted by the council. “We need to generate ‘businessfrendly’ governments, […] that the governmental decisions that can be taken by the different administrations were more predictable, [para] reduce uncertainty, which is the main current threat”, he stated.