The differences between the Australian logistics group Goodman and the so-called decarbonization hub have caused a new delay in the reindustrialization plan and have set off alarms in the union media, which in its day already saw what should be the great industrial alternative to Nissan frustrated. , that of the Chinese Great Wall Motors (GWM).
At the request of the hub, which is headed by QEV and B-Tech, the Consorci de la Zona Franca (CZB) and the reindustrialization table have decided to delay another fifteen days, until October 31, the deadline for submitting offers for the land of Nissan. With this, in the best of cases, the award will not take place until mid-November.
The decision comes when former Nissan workers are about to complete a year of unemployment and see the end of the benefit period closer. “This new delay is not understood, I hope it is not a preparation of the ground to announce later that the investment will not be carried out,” union sources warned. QEV and B-Tech deny this. “We continue working and we are very focused on the reindustrialization project to present a candidacy with broad guarantees. Our priorities continue to be the implementation of an innovation ecosystem in electromobility, which will create new business and opportunities for the Spanish industrial sector, as well as the reabsorption of the talent that used to work at Nissan”, Joan Orús, CEO of QEV Technologies, said in a note. . Goodman also assured that the group “remains committed to the project and continues to negotiate with the hub.”
The plan provides for the CZF to award the management of the land to a logistics real estate operator, which in turn will sublet them to other companies, both industrial and logistics. Goodman’s offer included an agreement with the hub, as anticipated at the reindustrialization table coordinated by KPMG.
With this agreement, Goodman would finance the start-up of the hub’s industrial project, which includes the manufacture of various types of electric vehicles. But in the financial details, the negotiation has stalled, among other things because the market conditions have also changed, with the rise in interest rates and the slowdown in economic growth. Sources familiar with the conversations also explain that the conditions of the CZF contest are complex, to the point that Goodman has had to request several clarifications from the entity directed by Pere Navarro.
Among other things, the tender specifications establish that the successful bidder must invest at least 100 million and establishes that the award will be for 50 years, extendable by another 20. The tender affects some 400,000 square meters (another 100,000 have been reserved for Silence and the Nissan technical center).
