Catalonia has led the way in attracting aid from the Perte Agroalimentario, the Government program that channels the arrival of European Next Generation funds in the key sectors of the Spanish economy.
According to a document provided by government sources, a total of 57 Catalan companies have obtained 29.4% of the aid related to the first call, which is endowed with a total of 183 million euros. This means that the chosen companies will receive 54 million, 80% of which as direct aid and 20% in the form of interest-free loans maturing in ten years.
After Catalonia, the communities that have obtained the most funds are, in this order, Valencia, Galicia, Andalusia and Murcia. Although these sources do not detail the amounts awarded to each territory, the distribution coincides, in part, with the distribution of the agri-food industry in the country. As the graph reflects, companies from Catalonia are at the head of the Spanish agri-food industry, both in terms of employment and turnover. It is followed by Andalusia, Castilla y León, Valencia, Galicia and Madrid, which is slightly above Murcia.
“The leadership in obtaining funds is the result of the roots of the industry, which is highly exporting and has been investing in innovation for years,” says Ramon Sentmartí, general director of the public company Prodeca, of the Department of Agriculture of the Generalitat. . There is no public data on the resources that companies in this sector allocate to R&D. Sources from the Generalitat comment that four years ago the National Statistics Institute stopped publishing this data.
The Perte Agroalimentario seeks precisely to promote I D in the industry, in addition to sustainability and digitalization. In Catalonia, the Government has chosen initiatives of different sizes and sectors, among which meat, drinks and healthy food stand out. According to the document consulted, companies as diverse as Teresa Carles, Ametller Origen, Noel, Vall Companys, Grupo Guissona, Damm, Codorniu, Heura, Nora Real Food, Bunge, Carinsa, Venvirotech or Fruselva have been selected.
“The processing of the aid has been complex since initially, this Perte also included agricultural companies. Then they excluded them to limit the program exclusively to industry,” comments Marta Angerri, director of European Financing for the Ametller group. However, once the aid is approved, the selected companies celebrate that the funds arrive in time to undertake the investments. “It is expected that at the end of February we will receive a large part of the funds and that is appreciated since public resources usually arrive with a delay of six months or a year,” says Jaume Planella, corporate director of R & D at Noel Alimentaria. Specifically, companies will receive 90% of the aid while 10% will be disbursed at the end of the project.
The Perte stipulates a period of two years – 2024 and 2025 – to execute the investments but there is a group of companies that is already working to request an extension until 2026. “We do not want to rush in the execution of the projects since these are of great importance. draft. Furthermore, the deadlines for building and receiving deliveries of materials may be longer,” comments Jordi Barri, CEO of the Teresa Carles group.
Obtaining aid has been subject to strict conditions that have forced applicants to prove, among other aspects, that the funds are intended for R&D projects, digitalization, reduction of the environmental footprint, competitiveness and food traceability. The Ministry of Industry has established three main axes to distribute aid among these themes. It has also asked companies to develop collaborative projects that connect SMEs with large companies from a minimum of three autonomous communities.
In fact, the aid that the 57 Catalan companies have received has been grouped into nine initiatives. Each one is focused on an activity and affects companies in multiple sectors. Three stand out related to the meat world and the rest are distributed among different sectors, such as beverages or plant products.
The Agri-food Perte does not end here. In fact, the arrival of the 183 million is just the beginning. The total budget of the Perte is 1,002.91 million euros. It will be divided into two phases, the first of which is endowed with 747 million euros, which have already been transferred by the European Commission. The method of execution of the aid is carried out through calls and the first is the one that has been approved with an amount of 183 million.
Last week, Luis Planas, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, announced that the Government is already working on the second call, which will also focus on sustainability and digitalization projects.
In addition to this aid, the Perte Agrialimentario has an additional 800 million euros that will be used for the transformation of the agri-food industry and the improvement of water management and the modernization of irrigation. At the moment, 410 million euros have been approved to reinforce the modernization actions of more than 160,000 hectares of irrigated land. With these figures, the Government calculates that the Perte Agroalimentario can generate an impact on the Spanish economy of 3,000 million euros.
Despite being large figures, they are modest when compared to those contemplated in other Perte (there are a total of 12). Those that receive the largest amount of funds are those of microelectronics and semiconductors, with a budget of 12,000 million euros, the Perte electric vehicle, endowed with more than 4,000 million and the Perte on renewable energies, renewable hydrogen and storage, endowed with another 4,000 million euros.
