The ceramic sector will have six more months to comply with the general subsidy law in order to regularize its payments to suppliers and thus be able to access aid such as Next Generation funds. The Government will publish “in a few days” a royal decree law that will regulate this regulation so that “they have a whole year to take advantage of it and do not have to return the aid,” explained the Secretary of State for Industry, the Valencian Rebeca Torró, yesterday during the inauguration of Cevisama, which celebrates its 40th edition this year.
Torró highlighted that the measure is applied knowing that the tile industry is “a highly exporting sector that always has difficulties in this regard.” This change seeks to ensure that ceramic companies do not have to return the European funds of 70 million euros (54 million provided by the Ministry of Industry and 20 million by the Treasury), within the extraordinary aid package valued at 450 million that made available to the Executive.
Torró also explained yesterday that the Executive is studying other measures to help the sector with other measures, such as the decarbonization Perte (valued at 3,000 million euros) and assured that soon there will be lines aimed “exclusively” at sectors such as ceramics to accelerate their technologies. He also confirmed that the sector will meet at the beginning of March with the Minister of Industry, Jordi Hereu, to address its current situation, conditioned by high energy costs.
For his part, the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, claimed the need to maintain aid to the ceramic sector, “due to the hard struggle that the sector is having” and recalled that “it continues to need more and more support from everyone.” .
The sector will take stock today during the fair, but both its exports and production have fallen by more than 15% compared to the previous year. According to data from Ascer, the tile association that participates in Cevisama with a total of 43 manufacturers, the export of the sector between January and December 2023, carried out to 189 countries, was 3,563.6 million euros, with a drop of 16. 6% compared to the same period in 2022. In volume, exports during the period were also lower, 22.1% less than in 2022.
The Cevisama organizing committee, which yesterday joined in “regret” for the tragedy of the Campanar fire in an inauguration strained by the mourning of recent days in the Valencian Community, valued the increase in the fair’s budget, which includes in this edition with more than a thousand exhibitors. Likewise, the vice president of the Ascer employers’ association and member of the Cevisama organizing committee, Ismael García Peris, pointed to the good forecasts for this edition, in which more than 850 foreign companies considered “VIP” and more than 430 national buyers are expected. guests.
The event, which yesterday showed a great atmosphere on its first day of opening, with great attendance in the pavilions and almost full parking, was also attended by the unions, which are in full negotiation, but stalled, of the collective agreement with the employers. Last Thursday, the meeting between the two ended without “possibility of agreement,” according to Ascer, who assures that the sector is making “the greatest effort to maintain employment after having lost 33% of its production in two years and having destroyed only 12% employment.”
For their part, the unions UGT-PV and CCOO-PV maintain their calendar of mobilizations and today they will gather in protest at the gates of Feria Valencia. Likewise, they foresee 24-hour strikes for tomorrow and Friday. A strike that will be indefinite starting Thursday at the Roca Tiles company, in La Vall d’Uixó, after no agreement has been reached on the agreement being negotiated with the management.
From CCOO-PV of Hábitat in Comarques del Nord they explain that in three years, workers in the sector “have lost 5.8 points of purchasing power, plus the losses due to the numerous ERTE and the increase in the price of life,” reports EFE. . “We have been losing purchasing power for 15 years and we have the highest working hours in the industrial sector. It is time to lower them,” they add.
