Jars of bitter orange marmalade from Pati dels Tarongers reappeared as a courtesy gift for the management of Lotte Energy Materials. Pere Aragonès handed them over to the leadership of a Korean conglomerate that will allocate up to a maximum of 1,200 million in Mont-roig del Camp, in the Els Comellarets industrial estate. It will be a complex of three plants for the manufacture of elecfoil, an essential component for electric batteries, and will directly employ 600 people. With his visit to the Lotte headquarters in Seoul, the president of the Generalitat reaffirms his commitment to the reindustrialization of Catalonia and believes that he will encourage more Korean companies to invest in Catalonia.
“Lotte Energy Materials is developing the largest investment in new industrial implementation in the last 20 years in Catalonia,” said Aragonès. For the president “it is a strategic investment for Catalonia.” “We have been working for many months, with daily follow-up with the company and with the desire that it be an investment that has an impact on new opportunities,” he added, since “[it will be] a very good example for the rest of the large Korean companies: Once they see that an investment of this magnitude is produced in Catalonia and that it works well, we are convinced that many more will come.”
Lotte’s has been one of the three main objectives for which Aragonès visited South Korea this week. The “Catalunya, always endavant” campaign, through which the president will personally encourage foreign investment in Catalan territory, and the inauguration of the foreign delegation in this Asian country were the other two important purposes of the trip.
The Seoul delegation must facilitate interaction with the Generalitat, including business and economic issues such as those that Aragonès has discussed on his trip. A function that is the same for the other international offices of the Generalitat. There are currently 21 delegations deployed, of which 14 are fully operational.
Never before has the Generalitat had so many delegations since the creation of the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2016 under the leadership of Raül Romeva. With the application of article 155 of the Constitution in October 2017, eight of the nine then existing delegations declined. They were seen by the State more as an element of “propaganda” for independence aspirations than as centers of economic cooperation or Catalan social, business, civil and cultural dissemination in the international sphere.
Since the reactivation of some delegations in 2018 and under the command of Ernest Maragall, Alfred Bosch, Bernat Solé, Victòria Alsina, the number of delegations has been growing. Until today with Meritxell Serret and the inauguration of the one in South Korea, perhaps the one that has acquired a more economic promotion profile.
That the latter is the case is demonstrated by Aragonès’ words this Thursday: “Korea is a priority country. It is a historic opportunity to once again be one of the most industrialized territories in Europe and we must take advantage of it.” He has highlighted this on behalf of Lotte and the 1.2 billion that the investment in Catalonia may compromise.
In this sense, the Generalitat will launch as soon as the year begins what it has called the “Korea plan”, which will extend until 2027, and with which it intends that a good part of Catalonia’s foreign economic promotion be for the area of South Korea.
This Thursday, Aragonès also met with the management of Hyundai, one of the leading companies in the automotive world. “We have addressed the possibilities surrounding the use of hydrogen in public and freight transport,” he said. The meeting has served to set about working on shared future projects. He met with Naver, the so-called Korean Google, which provides technological services in the afternoon. The president considers that this company can contribute to the development of start-ups in Catalonia.
