Catalonia has led the capture of aid from the Perte agroalimentari, the Central Government program that channels the arrival of Next Generation European funds in 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 183 million euros. This means that the chosen companies will receive 54 million, 80% of which as direct grants and 20% in the form of interest-free loans with a maturity of ten years.
After Catalonia, the communities that have obtained the most funds are, in that order, Valencia, Galicia, Andalusia and Murcia. Although these sources do not detail the amounts allocated 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 forefront of the Spanish agri-food industry, both in terms of number of jobs and turnover. It is followed by Andalusia, Castile and Leon, Valencia, Galicia and Madrid, which is slightly above Murcia.
“The leadership in obtaining the funds is the result of the roots of the industry, which is highly exporting and has been investing in innovation for years”, states 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 the sector allocate to R&D. Sources from the Generalitat comment that four years ago the National Institute of Statistics stopped publishing the data.
The Perte agroalimentari seeks precisely to promote R&D in the industry, in addition to sustainability and digitization. In Catalonia, the Government has chosen initiatives of different sizes and sectors, among which meat, drinks and healthy eating stand out. According to the document consulted, such diverse companies as Teresa Carles, Ametller Origen, Noel, Vall Companys, Grup Guissona, Damm, Codorniu, Heura, Nora Real Food, Bunge, Carinsa, Venvirotech or Fruselva have been selected.
“The processing of the grants has been complex because, in the beginning, this Perte also included the companies of the agricultural exploitations. Then they excluded them to limit the program exclusively to industry”, comments Marta Angerri, European finance director of the Ametller Group. However, once the grants are approved, the selected companies celebrate that the funds arrive in time to start the investments. “It is planned that at the end of February we will receive a large part of the funds and this is appreciated, because public resources usually arrive with a delay of six months or a year”, affirms Jaume Planella, corporate director of R D of Noel Alimentaria. Specifically, companies will receive 90% of the aid while 10% will be disbursed when the project ends.
El 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 the execution of the projects because are of utmost importance. In addition, the deadlines for building and receiving deliveries of materials can be extended”, comments Jordi Barri, CEO of the Teresa Carles group.
Obtaining the grants has been subject to strict conditions that have forced the applicants to certify, among other aspects, that the funds are intended for R&D projects, digitization, reduction of the environmental footprint, competitiveness and traceability of food The Ministry of Industry has set three main axes to distribute aid between these themes. It has also requested companies to develop collaborative projects that connect SMEs with large companies from at least three autonomous communities.
In fact, the aid received by the 57 Catalan companies has been grouped into nine initiatives. Each is focused on an activity and affects companies from multiple sectors. Three stand out related to the meat world and the rest are distributed between different sectors, such as beverages or vegetable products.
The Perte agro-alimentari does not end here. In fact, the arrival of the 183 million is only the beginning. Perte’s total budget is 1,002.91 million euros. It will be articulated in two phases; the first is endowed with 747 million euros, which have already been transferred by the European Commission. The execution of the grants is carried out through calls for proposals and the first is the one that has been approved with a sum of 183 million.
Last week, Luis Planas, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, announced that the Spanish Government is already working on the second call, which will also focus on sustainability and digitization projects.
In addition to these grants, the Perte agro-alimentari 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 systems. At the moment, 410 million euros have been approved to strengthen the modernization of more than 160,000 hectares of irrigation. With these figures, the Government calculates that the agri-food Perte can generate an impact on the Spanish economy of 3,000 million euros.
Although these are large numbers, they are modest if compared to those allocated in other Pertes (there are a total of 12). Those that take the most funds are those on 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 more than 4,000 million euros.