BASF will install an international engineering hub in Spain, with double headquarters at its La Canonja plant, in Tarragona where its current engineering team is located, and in Madrid, to take advantage of synergies with the main engineering firms in the country, as explained by this tomorrow Carles Navarro, general director of BASF Spain and head of the group’s activities in the Iberian Peninsula.

Navarro explained that the new center “will develop projects for the whole of Europe, and even global” and will create dozens of jobs, which he did not want to quantify, “depending on the projects that we can attract.” In his opinion, “it is a sign of the group’s confidence in Spain because this center could have been located in any other country. And it also responds to the satisfaction with the performance that our current engineering team is having, in Tarragona”.

This will be the second international hub that Basf has opened in Spain in the last four years, together with the digitization center that opened in Madrid in 2019, and which supplies digital solutions for the entire company and in which close to 500 people already work.

Navarro explained that in collaboration with Cellnex, it has installed a private 5G network at its La Canonja factory, the group’s largest in southern Europe. Basf has thus become the first chemical company in Spain to have its own private 5G spectrum to operate, and one of the first industries in Spain. “We are also one of the first within the group to implement this technology. That allows us to take a step towards a more efficient and safe future”.

The company, Navarro explained, has resisted in a difficult environment: the group in Spain had a turnover of 1,562 million euros last year, with an increase of 16% compared to 2021. The increase, Navarro acknowledged, is the result of the growth of prices in practically all production lines (19%), which has offset the drop in volumes of 2%. “In the second part of the year we have not been able to transfer the price increases to our consumers, because the demand has been weaker.”

Despite this context, the group maintained its investment in Spain last year, at 50 million euros, 6 million more than initially planned and stable compared to 2021. A large part of the investment, 16 million euros, has been allocated to the automotive paint factory in Marchamalo (Guadalajara), in laboratories, equipment and warehouse. For this year, the company plans to invest 43 million euros in Spain “although it is a figure that can be increased depending on how the projects evolve.”

Navarro did not want to give economic forecasts for the business in Spain, but acknowledged that the year has started with a “mediocre” tone. He recalled that the multinational has announced globally that sales will be between 84,000 and 87,000 million euros, while profit is expected to be an “average” year.