Tag: inversio

Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca will invest 800 million euros to create an R&D centre in Barcelona that will become a reference centre for clinical innovation in Europe in the company’s five main therapeutic areas.

The facility will bring together experts in clinical development and operations, pharmaceutical sciences, drug safety and data analytics to develop new therapies and address unmet patient needs. AstraZeneca’s CEO highlighted the importance of public-private collaboration in the development of new medicines and announced the company’s investment plans in Spain until 2025.

In the drug research and development sector, Spain stands out for its high level of professionals and its R&D&I ecosystem. In Catalonia alone, there are 91 research centres and more than 1,300 biopharmaceutical, healthcare, MedTech and digital health companies. The country has authorised more than 900 clinical trials with medicines, demonstrating its commitment to innovation.

The company AstraZeneca has invested more than 93 million euros in innovative projects in 2021, and the investment multiplied last year, reaching almost 400 million euros. In addition, the international pharmaceutical investment project in Barcelona has the support of ACCIÓ-Catalonia Trade & Investment, the Catalan government’s agency for foreign investment and business competitiveness.

Barcelona has become a strategic location for AstraZeneca, especially since it opened, together with Alexion, its clinical trials centre for rare diseases with an investment of 32 million euros. According to ACCIÓ-Catalonia Trade & Investment data, Catalonia ranks sixth in Europe in clinical trial development, with more than 1,200 active trials, 50% in oncology, one of the areas in which AstraZeneca is strongest. This demonstrates the importance of the region to the company’s innovation and drug development strategy.

LaSalle has invested 25 million to raise the property to 21,000 m2. The ship, which has been occupied by the French group Daher since the second quarter of 2022, is located at quince kilometres from Barcelona and 25 kilometres from the port.

Scannell Properties is a private equity company specializing in promoting developed real estate. They have offices in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom, where they have carried out over 360 projects with a total volume of 7.8 million m2.

Since its inception to the national market, the company has deployed a growth strategy, buying land in different parts of the territory. The last operation was at the La Cova industrial estate in Manises, Valencia, with the development of a 19.171 m2 logistical platform.

The logistics centre will be state-of-the-art, sustainable, with additional offices and adapted to customer needs. It will be erected on a plot of 26,589 m2, where a warehouse of 16,612 m2, with offices and anexos buildings, will be built, totaling 2,559 m2 more.

It will have twenty loading docks, a large 32-metre maneuvering beach and a ship-free height of over 11 metres. It will have outdoor parking areas. It is expected to be completed during the third quarter of 2023.

ICC, the company specializing in the promotion and management of logistical assets and Toyota Material Handling Espaaa have begun construction of the Sabadell ICC Logistic Park, a new project of more than 22,400 m2.

The hub logistic will be erected over a 37,247 m2 (3,247 sq ft) parent cell and will consist of two modules, one of which will be 16,500 m2, which will be the new headquarters for the Japanese company. This module is joined by another 5,900 m2, currently available.

This new Logistics Park will have the ICC label, which supports the highest levels of sustainability in the construction process and in the use of the building. In this respect, the logistics centre will have the most vanguard systems for waste management and energy efficiency.

Use measurements such as photovoltaic panels, LED lights, etc. In order to make it sustainable, the building is planned to opt for the LEED Gold certification granted by the US Green Building Council.

José Luis Martínez, a member of the ICC, comments, “the demand for logistical space remains strong in Catalonia and in this sense logistical centres with such an excellent location as we find ourselves in will continue to awaken interest from both tenants and investors.”

Toyota, future tenant of the new center

Toyota Material Handling Espaaa is one of the future tenants, who will move their headquarters from Barberà del Vallès to Sabadell next year. This location change is part of the company’s growth consolidation strategy, which aims to improve service.

With this privileged location, the firm will offer greater coverage thanks to its connections and facilities, created to provide good service.

After the pandemic, the Port of Barcelona has resumed its activity, surpassing the highest figure in the historical series so far, the 67.8 million tonnes in 2018.

The Port of Barcelona has registered a record at the operational level in 2022 and has managed to exceed its pre-pandemic turnover with 181 million euros. Although this income has been affected by a €25 million recovery plan to cope with the crisis, the year’s profits have improved on those of 2019, reaching €63 million. The Port’s president, Lluís Salvadó, highlighted these results as good, given the complicated international context in which they have been perceived.

The port’s total traffic has recorded a homogeneous growth in all segments, except for container traffic, which has remained similar to the previous year. Excluding containers, the most dynamic traffics have been potash and hydrocarbons, with an increase of 53% and 34.5%, respectively, driven by the investments made in previous years and the energy crisis. 

On the other hand, car traffic has improved significantly with an increase of 18.4%. It should be noted that exports have been affected by the lack of semiconductors and the closure of the Nissan plant. Imports grew by 63% and overall traffic by 145.7%.

José Alberto Carbonell, general manager of the Port of Barcelona, comments, “in recent years, the Port of Barcelona has become a distribution hub”, in order to understand the increase in traffic, with cars coming from Asia and being distributed throughout Europe from the Catalan capital. Electric cars account for 20% of imports, which are increasing and have made China the main origin, relegating Japan.

At present, the segment that continues to suffer the effects of covid are cruises, with 2.3 million passengers registered in 2022, still far from the 3.1 million of 2019, but above the 521,000 of 2021. Moderate growth is expected, between 2% and 3%, although improvements are expected on issues such as the recovery of routes with Barcelona as a home port and deseasonalisation.

Investment plan

The Barcelona Port Authority plans to invest some 300 million euros during 2023, according to Salvadó, “a qualitative leap” compared to previous years, with 32 million invested in 2021. Updating port infrastructures will be the most important item, with 200 million euros earmarked for new berths at the Moll de l’Energia and the enlargement of the Moll Adossat. 

In addition, 35 million euros will be invested in the electrification of the port and 28 million euros in new railway accesses. 31 million euros will also be earmarked for the renovation of the Port Vell, with the aim of preparing it for the America’s Cup.

This is a strategic investment that will have a significant impact on boosting R&D activity in Catalonia. For the Government, this is an important investment linked to semiconductors, with the aim of boosting local industry and attracting new foreign investment projects to the sector. 

Government of Catalonia is delighted that the US multinational Cisco is opening a semiconductor design centre in Barcelona, making it the first city in the European Union to have such an infrastructure.

This type of investment is highly competitive internationally and contributes to guaranteeing Catalonia’s technological independence, as well as that of Europe. 

The relationship between Catalonia and Cisco has been growing closer in recent months. The Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, met during the last Mobile World Congress with the CEO of the multinational, Chuck Robbins, as well as with the company’s vice-president, Mark Patterson, and the general manager of Cisco in Spain, Andreu Vilamitjana. 

The new semiconductor design centre in Barcelona has created 150 new skilled jobs. The company has also expanded its Barcelona design centre by 1,200 m2 and plans to build a new 3,000 m2 building in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat with a test laboratory.

The project tendered by Renfe for the supply, replacement, installation and maintenance of access control machinery at Rodalies de Catalunya stations involves an investment of €5,122,342.32 including IVA.

The obsolete access control equipment is being replaced to install it in stations that do not have access control and wherever it is necessary. 

The new installations will be adapted for people with reduced mobility, will be bi-directional, and will have contactless card reader devices, 1D/2D barcodes and T-Mobilitat barcodes, both at the entrance and exit. 

This project responds to one of the points of Renfe’s Strategic Plan. This document includes the promotion of digital transformation and the provision of security and comfort for the customer. 

It is an action financed by NextGenerationEU funds. 

He made the visit accompanied by the Catalan Minister for Research and Universities, Joaquim Nadal, and with them was the director of the ALBA Synchrotron, Caterina Biscari. Also present during the visit were Joan Gómez, Director General of Research, Carlos Cordón, the mayor of Cerdanyola del Vallès, Javier Lafuente, the rector of the UAB, Pere Solà, the director of Parc de l’Alba and Joan Borràs, the territorial delegate of Barcelona. 

Aragonès highlighted the ALBA II project as “one of Catalonia’s great scientific assets and an exceptional research tool”.  

TRANSFER OF LAND FOR THE ALBA II PROJECT

At the end of the visit, the President, accompanied by the Councillor and the director of ALBA, confirmed the transfer of the adjacent land to ALBA. This land will double the current surface area of the ALBA Synchrotron.

It is an opportunity for the future development of a scientific and innovation pole in collaboration with other institutions. 

The ALBA II project foresees the construction of three new extra-long beamlines to be located on the new land allocated to the project. The project will carry out the modernisation of existing scientific instruments, the development of the infrastructure to store and analyse data and the creation of a state-of-the-art instrument that will be available, from 2030 onwards, to the public and private scientific community with the aim of solving societal challenges and advancing knowledge of the world around us. 

The City Council’s aim is to consolidate the city as the digital capital of southern Spain. According to Deputy Mayor Jaume Collboni, ten million euros will be invested in six private venture capital funds through a new public-private fund, Barcelona Accelera. 

The six selected funds must commit to invest at least three times the amount committed by the city council, which in no case can be their initial investment, as their contribution will represent a maximum of 10%.

The aim of the council is to recover the capital invested within a decade and to promote start-ups in the city.

The projects will be chosen through a competition, in which certain requirements must be met. Some of these requirements are to be based in the Catalan capital or in a town in the metropolitan area and to form part of one of the strategic sectors that form part of the ‘Barcelona Green Deal’ schedule.  In addition, the city council will take into account for part of the investment, companies led by women. 

The initiative will be led by the municipal economic development agency Barcelona Activa. 

To begin with, a hotel will be put out to tender in Terminal 2 from 2024, although construction will not be completed until 2026. There are also plans for 36 hectares of logistics space in front of T2 and, in time, the development of a hotel in T1, as well as offices. So far, Aena has not been able to carry out any of the project due to a lack of political consensus.

Despite opposition to airport expansion, Aena plans to develop 151 hectares at Barcelona airport. On the other hand, at Madrid-Barajas Airport, Aena awarded P3, a subsidiary of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, the development of 32 hectares for logistics uses for around 170 million euros. The next step will be to add offices and hotels to the airport city by the end of next year. 

During the first half of 2025 it is planned to launch the logistics hub at the Costa del Sol-Malaga Airport and during the first six months of 2026, its hotel hub. The master plans for Valencia and Seville are expected to be finalised in 2023. 

The long list has just been joined by technology companies such as Cisco and its first European chip design centre in Ca L’Alier, the investments of Lenovo and Intel in the BSC, or that of the American MPS in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. There have also been incorporations in the automotive sector, with the South Korean ILJIN, and in the health sector, with AstraZeneca’s new technology centre for rare diseases, the digital centre of the Swiss company Ypsomed and Veeva, which specialises in software development for the pharmaceutical industry. 

In numbers, they have surpassed those before the pandemic, when there were 8,908 (2019). As a result, Acció is working with a portfolio of 613 foreign investment projects, which is 56% more than in 2020. 

Typology of companies

The more than 9,000 multinationals established in Catalonia account for 18.5% of employment in Spain. It is worth noting that the majority are located in the Barcelonès region (60.8%), Vallès Occidental (11.2%) and Baix Llobregat (10.6%).

Micro-companies are predominant with a percentage of 42.6%, ahead of small companies (29.1%), medium-sized companies (19.8%) and large companies, which account for the lowest percentage (8.5%). On the other hand, companies more than 20 years old since their creation stand out (33%). 

In terms of sectors, infrastructure and construction are by far the main players, with almost 2,000 companies, representing 13.1% of the total. They are followed by ICT and Industry 4.0 companies with 897, or 9.8%, and machinery and capital goods with 658, or 7.2%. 

On the other hand, the origin of these companies is varied, but by far the largest proportion comes from Europe (74%). Behind them are those from North America (15%) and Asia (8%). Finally, the countries that account for 57.7% of the total are France, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy.

There are several factors that determine a professional’s decision when deciding where to develop his or her career or invest. Not only the quality of life or pleasant weather. 

Barcelona has positioned itself in recent years as a winning city in the league of attracting international talent, even so, its potential has not been maximised as a result of some shortcomings. Some of these include excessive bureaucracy, a lack of English-language education and a number of other shortcomings that prevent the city from exploiting its full potential.

The Barcelona Global association’s main objective is to eliminate or reduce these obstacles. The organisation is convinced that Barcelona has the potential to become one of the world’s leading cities for talent and the economy. 

The new Startups Law, which the association has been working on for more than five years, has specific objectives. Starting with effectively improving taxation, reducing bureaucracy and boosting the entrepreneurial ecosystem and attracting talent. 

Although the regulation is an improvement for the whole of Spain, it will mainly benefit the Catalan capital, according to Maite Barrera, president of the association involved. The city will be able to better capitalise on the changes introduced, given that it is currently considered the third favourite city in Europe to create a startup.

Some of the successful tech companies born in Barcelona are Glovo, Wallbox, Travelperk, Factorial, eDreams and Privalia, all of which have added value to the Catalan capital. In addition, the new law will attract digital hubs of large companies such as Nestlé, Pepsico, HP and Amazon, among others. 

Cepsa and Acciona-Silence have joined forces to promote this electric battery exchange point for cars and motorbikes. Barcelona is the pioneer city in setting up this station. The main objective of the project is to facilitate the rapid recharging of batteries. 

Carlos Sotelo, CEO of Silence and Mobility Acciona explains, “the user arrives and has an already charged battery at his disposal”. The executive adds, “we are talking about a system that is more economical and cleaner than petrol”. 

The exchange station will be located on Carrer Comte d’Urgell. In the coming months, the two companies plan to build ten similar facilities in Barcelona and the country’s capital. 

Main advantages of the service

The main advantage of this new service is its immediacy, as the process is very similar in time to refuelling. In addition, this service encourages the use of electric vehicles, offering a 40% saving on the purchase cost. In this case, the batteries are not included, they are rented.

This service will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers will pay a monthly fee to take advantage of the service and, according to media reports, a fee that is significantly lower than that paid for fuel.

 This test responds to the need to anticipate future scenarios such as the increasing demand for green hydrogen in road vehicle transport. The ultimate goal is for the population to have access to renewable energy sources, in the shortest possible time, in order to guarantee long journeys without problems. 

During October, tourist employment in Catalonia fell by 4.3% compared with September. In figures, 12,496 workers were no longer employed in October compared with the previous month. This event coincides with the end of the summer season and is not perceived as negative, as compared with the previous year, recruitment has increased by 7.8%. 

In Spain as a whole, the tourism sector employed 2.5 million people in October, 69,834 fewer than in September. Even so, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism emphasised that this is the best historical record for the tenth month of the year. In the whole of Spain the growth was 6.4%.

Compared to last year, the number of employed workers increased by 10.2%, a figure that is worth noting. On the other hand, self-employed workers decreased by 1%.  In figures, there were 225,703 employees and 55,240 self-employed.

The first digital port in Catalonia is located in Sant Adrià de Besòs. It will be a strategic area for fibre optic connections in southern Europe.

Barcelona Cable Landing Station is the first landing station to be built in Catalonia with an international dimension. This infrastructure will soon become a benchmark digital port in the Mediterranean. The first two cables are expected to arrive at the end of the year, although the infrastructure is ready to receive up to eight submarine fibre optic cables.

The infrastructure has involved an investment of seven million euros. All the capital has been provided by AFR-IX telecom, which is a Catalan telecommunications company that has promoted the project and will soon move its headquarters to the building.

“Considering that 98% of internet traffic is carried by submarine cable, Barcelona Cable Landing Station will be a key part of gaining connectivity with the world,” said Norman Abi, CEO of the company.

Over the next ten years, all eight international submarine cables are expected to land, making the infrastructure an essential hub for the digital economy of the entire country, creating an alternative to the port of Marseille, which is currently suffering from saturation due to the high number of cables landing there.

WHAT IS A SUBMARINE CABLE?

Submarine cables perform the same function as an aircraft at an airport, but in this case they carry information. The data on these fibre optic cables is sent from the landing station to different data centres.

In this case, it is the first open port in Catalonia and the second in Spain, i. e-access for unrestricted cable access. It is an innovation, since usually each company that owns a cable has to build its own landing station for the cable connection.

INFRASTRUCTURE

The location of the digital port is in Sant Adrià de Besòs. It is a two-storey building with a total area of 2,657 m2 in which eight rooms have been fitted out for laying the submarine cables, each with a capacity for 16 telecommunications racks. The facilities meet all safety standards, as well as energy efficiency, since the structure has 194 solar panels.

The Zona Franca Consortium of Barcelona has won a public call for grants from the Incyde Foundation of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce to set up a high-tech logistics 4.0 Incubator, which will be located in the DFactory Barcelona.

After resorting to a public call for aid from the Incyde Foundation of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce, it has allowed them to cover 50% of the two million euros of investment planned for this initiative. This project will be active towards the beginning of 2023, according to sources from the Zona Franca.

The project will cover different objectives oriented towards emerging technologies within the logistics sector. The incubator aims to improve business competitiveness, the value of new technological applications and increase economic activity in the Zona Franca de Barcelona by increasing its attractiveness. In order to optimise the different processes, it involves robotics and automated warehouses. And to optimise the processes, the big date will be used to collect all the data generated.

The incubator will enable Catalonia to prosper with competitive advantages. It will make up 29% of Spain’s logistics surface area. It has some 39,000 companies in the sector, which is why it is a key territory for boosting the sector. The main improvements will be in the efficiency and versatility of production processes, as well as the internationalisation of initiatives and the development of innovation and specialised talent.

On the other hand, the opportunities of this project are to increase the economic impact and develop greater digital competences, both in skills and knowledge to consolidate the logistics centre.

Incyde has launched 23 high-tech incubators throughout Spain. Pepe Navarro, State delegate in the Zona Franca Consortium of Barcelona, stressed the importance of this because, “it is a key moment in the development of the logistics sector”. He added that the objective is to strengthen and reinforce the role of the Zona Franca.