take someone battery factory In Spain, this was one of the first commitments of Reyes Maroto, Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, on his arrival to the Government. Four years later, with his help New Generation funds, has two projects, but neither Catalonia, one of the ensembles that seems to be the most loved. This is how the minister explains it in an interview with El Periódico de Catalunya on the doorsteps of the first summer, when tourism spending is expected to reach pre-pandemic levels. 2023.
Acciona and Envision announced on Friday the establishment of a battery factory in Extremadura. Was the government involved in this project?
We discussed Acciona and Envision when we saw that Envision was interested in investing in Spain. It was very important for us to have a Spanish ‘partner’ in all projects. Not only do we have the Volkswagen group announcing its first giga factory, we will also have a second giga factory in Navalmoral de la Mata (Extremadura). This shows that Spain has the capacity to do this and it is only necessary to find financial instruments and actors.
The project call for the PERTE of the electric car has just ended (at 00:00 on Saturday). How many companies applied?
This week we learned about the inclusion of the Renault group in Irizar with PERTE, Mercedes, Stellantis… and even the ‘center’ of the future, which will be located in the Free Trade Zone. In total, 13 tractor projects from 13 groups were presented with a budget of 5,927 million Euros. The process will be resolved before the end of the year.
Without a gigafactory, is Catalonia in the background in this electric car race?
I think the opposite. Projects structure the zone. For example, in the case of the Volkswagen group, the investment is made not only in Sagunto, but also in nine autonomous communities. One of the biggest beneficiaries is the two factories Volkswagen owns in our country, Martorell and Navarra, where we will obviously switch all platforms to electric one. Therefore, I believe PERTE will represent an important support for Catalonia, not only because of Volkswagen, but also because the project to electrify the Nissan factories is part of it. Two projects born from the Catalan ecosystem.
But (Catalonia) was left without a battery factory.
The location of the battery factory is an issue that we are not impressed with. We accompanied companies to select the best locations. Instead of talking about losers, I talk about winners. The challenge was that Extremadura had an industrial project because it was a bit of a break from the industry. All autonomous communities are winning and the industry is winning because we will be at the forefront of all this change. Although I cite Extremadura as one of the biggest winners of this PERTE, we all won.
What changed? There was much social reluctance to extract lithium from the Cáceres mine.
There was reluctance to subtract, only subtraction. Now we are talking about a value chain to be created in Extremadura. The development of industrial capabilities is completely changing the paradigm. The battery factory alone is 3,000 jobs and so I hope the Extremaduran community uptake will be positive.
So there will be two battery factories in Spain. There is no more?
Two is one hit. We’d all be happy to have gotten the first one.
President Sánchez went to Davos to seek investors for the PERTE of microchips. Did you find them?
The ambition is great, but the actors are few because there are only three manufacturers of semiconductors smaller than 5 nanometers. We are not starting from scratch. In fact, Intel has already announced that it will make an initial investment of 200 million euros in the Barcelona supercomputer. We have eleven projects that the European Commission is evaluating in the field of microelectronics IPCEI (European Common Interests Important Project for English abbreviation). The most ambitious is Barcelona, that of the National Supercomputing Centre. The Davos meetings were very constructive. There was Intel, Cisco, Qualcomm that I contacted in Washington and Sánchez met the CEO in Davos. We believe that one of the ecosystems that can be built around the PERTE chip may be in Galicia. Obviously another will be in Catalonia and another in Malaga. There may be more, but we have at least identified these three ‘clusters’ as a starting point to start working on a larger scale.
What expectations do you have for the arrival of tourists this summer?
I think we will recover the pre-pandemic levels every month. Another thing is the end of the year, I think the spending will be at pre-pandemic levels, but we will have to wait until 2023 in terms of volume.
And will we save all the tourists in July and August?
I would go more in the fall. As last year, we are extending the summer season with October and November. But we must be careful. We are still in the context of a war where inflation is a factor that can reduce competitiveness and reduce the number of days traveled.
Why isn’t there a PERTE for tourism?
There is a PERTE for tourism. It is true that we call the Competitiveness and Modernization Plan for the 3400 million euro tourism sector, but it is the fourth most important investment in the Recovery Plan.
Valencian hoteliers complained about the bankruptcy of maintaining the same prices as last year on the Imserso itinerary. Is the current price sufficient?
It is not affiliated with the Ministry of Tourism, but under the Ministry of Social Affairs. We’ve become allies to convey our vision of what business is in terms of the tourism model that must explicitly bet on quality. And Imserso must also align with the expectations of retirees. It’s a successful program, but it needs to be modernized, and we share the hoteliers’ claim that prices need to be updated.