Pere Aragonès wants to get the most out of the Generalitat delegation in Seoul. He inaugurated it on the first day of the week and this Tuesday he presented a campaign to encourage foreign investment in Catalonia. The head of the Government intends for this task to bear his stamp. He has presented it in South Korea for the first time, but he will give an account of the potential of Catalonia in each of his next international trips. He believes that with the title of president he can contribute to reinforcing the attractiveness of the Catalan territory as an international investment destination. But he wants to focus it on two aspects: on health, and more specifically on biomedicine, and on technological infrastructures.
To seduce the foreign business community, Aragonès will make use of twelve large projects in operation and in the preparation phase located in Catalonia: the Mercat del Peix, the Sincrotón Alba, the minority diseases center of Sant Joan de Déu, the future research center of the Hospital Clínic, the Barcelona Center for Applied Sciences, the Center for Advanced and Emerging Therapies of Catalonia, the new telescope at the Montsec Observatory, the Innofab, the new Girona Health Campus and the Vall Quantica de Catalunya.
Taking advantage of the potential of all these centers, the president intends to invite any interested company to set up shop in Catalonia, with the consequent positive impact on the growth of the Catalan economy.
The Generalitat will have resources to promote a space in the territory for companies: the agreement that ERC signed with the PSOE for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, in addition to including the best-known proposals of the amnesty law or resuming the dialogue table, It provides for the transfer of 150 million euros annually from the State to Catalonia for “strategic projects” of research and development.
The first step of Aragonès’ “Catalunya, always endavant” campaign has been to try to convince the Korean business community to invest in Catalonia in biomedicine, taking into account that the Asian country is also a leader in this matter. But in his future visits to other States or regions, the Republican will adapt his invitation to the capabilities of each of them.
Until today there have been companies interested in the possibilities of these twelve projects. Pharmaceuticals, many of them. For research into new medications. There is competition between territories, but the Government highlights that Catalonia has a uniqueness that, in its opinion, can give it an advantage. That is: according to the Catalan Executive, 90% of these twelve projects are located a maximum of forty minutes away from each other.
Aragonès’ idea has an origin. At the Mobile World Congress in 2022, the Generalitat met with the company Cisco Systems. A few months later, the project to manufacture microchips in Catalonia was announced.
In the presentation that the president of the Generalitat made today at the foreign delegation in Seoul, agencies specialized in attracting investments, such as the Korean Kotra or Wego, were present. Members of the public agency Korean Development Institute – which is responsible for facilitating synergies between study and development centers – and the Korea Pharmaceutical Trader Association have also attended. Likewise, representatives of the chambers of commerce of Sweden, Holland and the European Union were present in the room.
Before this presentation, Aragonès has moved to Incheon, the third city by population in South Korea, after Seoul and Busan. In the meeting held together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Meritxell Serret, with the mayor of the town, Yoo Keong-bok, they agreed to open “work avenues” for the Firefighters, Mossos d’Esquadra and Civil Protection to exchange experiences about emergency services. The Korean city has “a very advanced system from a technological point of view”, of special interest for Catalonia in relation to aspects such as notifications to citizens.