balance primer trimestre

#CanariasZEC closes the first quarter of the year with 35 new business projects that will invest 82.8 million euros and will generate 459 #jobs in the #CanaryIslands

ZEC Promoción

The Canary Islands.- The Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC) has authorized, during the period from January to March of this financial period, a total of 35 new business projects that will invest 82.8 million euros and generate 459 jobs in the Canary Islands. This is the balance that shows the set of business initiatives authorized by the governing board (CR) during the first quarter of 2020. Regarding sectoral distribution, the tendency of the leadership of services against the industry and wholesale trade continues.

So, 71.4% of new recruits will carry out business activities related to services in the Canary Islands, including: big data, cybersecurity consultants, e-learnig, applications aimed at sustainable development, solutions applied to the evolution of renewable resources oriented to climate change; care homes for the elderly; global technology, educational and service platforms; call center; service and consulting centers; audiovisual; R+D+i; activities connected to tourism, shipping and construction, among others.

The quarterly analysis in the authorizations chapter shows that the service sector is also, at the same time, the one that generates greater employability, thus representing 78% of the total job creation in the Islands, that is, 358 new jobs. Meanwhile, the sector’s committed investment stands at 9% of the total.

On the other hand, the number of projects related to industry and wholesale trade are balanced, each representing 14.3% of the total. However, as relevant data, the investment committed by the authorized industrial activities in the Canary Islands during the first three months of the year represents 84.5% of the global investment committed, that is, it reaches almost 70 million euros.

Furthermore, its commitment to job creation almost doubles that of wholesale trade activities, with 14.4% of global job creation for the period. In the industrial sector, nanotechnology projects applied to the sector and cultivation of plants for therapeutic purposes have been authorized.

Finally, in the framework of commercial activities, the green light has been given to business projects for wholesale distribution and commercial intermediation, whose joint investment represents 6.6% of the global, and 7.6% of the employment committed between January and March 2020. Regarding the type of capital, 45.7% is foreign capital. In other words, almost half of the new projects authorized for this period are participated by international capital.

These in turn compromise 46% of the generation of committed employment in the Canary Islands, that is, 209 jobs. On this occasion, local capital represents 43%, with a commitment to job creation of 35.4%, that is, a total of 163 workers. Mixed capital represents 11.4%. During this quarter, was also authorized the extension of activity to promote new business lines related to the field of innovation, technology and sustainability.

These results reflect that the fiscal advantages offered by this incentive from the Canary Islands Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) may place companies in a “preferential” situation for managing the recovery of economic activity. Also, there is the fact that the promoters of an entity have a period of 18 months, extendable to 9 months, to launch authorized business projects. In addition to this, the investment and employment requirements required to join the ZEC are lower for the establishment of new companies in the non-capital islands.

Likewise, business projects continue to request registration in the ZEC Entity Registry (ROEZEC) to start their activity in sectors and activities such as: air, manufacturing, nanotechnology, and technological platforms and applications. On the other hand, ZEC companies related to technology and R&D have reoriented their business models by developing patents and implementing innovative solutions to combat COVID19.

These dynamics demonstrate that the ZEC is a countercyclical tool with the capacity and potential as an instrument of economic policy to advance the strategy of diversifying the Canarian productive fabric and, of course, in job creation, both aspects more than ever necessary for the reactivation of the Canary Islands economy.