Girona City Council wants to promote funds with the Catalan Institute of Finances (ICF) to help entrepreneurs in the city start up companies.
The deputy mayor and councilor for Economic Promotion, Gemma Geis, says that the goal is to create a "bag of money" so that entrepreneurs have resources to start their activities. This is one of the points that were part of the three-way government agreement between Guanyem, Junts and ERC.
The deputy mayor says that they will get to work on the next budgets. "We have to give that capacity to Girona entrepreneurs, with evaluated projects, so that they find help to stay in Girona and be able to start their companies," she says.
Attract talent and retain it. This is one of the objectives set by the Girona Economic Promotion Area. For this reason, the government team wants to create the so-called seed funds; Aid that, as its name suggests, is the starting point for starting a business project.
The objective of the programme, which will be channeled through the Girona Emprèn service, is to provide financial support to entrepreneurs from Girona who want to start up an economic activity in the city. The initiative will be carried out with the ICF alliance.
"It is a sought will, to support entrepreneurs. We must give them that capacity, that they find help to stay," says Geis.
On the other hand, the vice mayor is convinced that the seed, rebound funds will also end up attracting private capital through other investment channels. "Public leadership to extend a hand to those starting a project is always positive," says Geis.
At the moment the government team has not yet defined the amounts they want to allocate, but the forecast is that an item will already be contemplated in the next budgets. From there, what each entrepreneur receives will depend on what is established in the call for these new seed funds.
"It will also have to be seen based on demand; but at least, there should be a public fund in collaboration with the ICF; and if other private investment sources appear later, this will be good for entrepreneurs," he says. Geis. "That they don't have to go to Barcelona, that there be a first gateway to Girona," adds the deputy mayor and councilor for Economic Promotion.
On the other hand, in the field of commerce, the Girona City Council also wants to promote a mentoring plan to accompany those who want to start a project. In other words, when opening a store or some other establishment, newbies take advantage of the experience of those who have been in the industry for a long time. "In this way, some will help others and will accompany them; for example, when it comes to refocusing a product or activity," says Geis, stressing that one of the objectives of the new government team is to make a plan to protect trade proximity.
Among the policies that Geis wants to promote to retain talent in the city, the Girona City Council must join the Industrial Doctorate Plan. The deputy mayor, who hopes to be able to incorporate a contribution to the municipal accounts by 2024, explains that through this project the council will assume the cost of those doctoral theses that are done in companies in Girona, and that through technology or knowledge, allow them to provide solutions to specific problems and demands they may have.
"In other words, that knowledge stays there," says the vice mayor and councilor for Economic Promotion. According to Geis, the new plan will allow "creating a framework of opportunities, because in Girona we need talent and innovation in all areas".
For its part, the area led by Gemma Geis also works to promote innovative projects in digital health, cybersecurity and agri-food. A path that, as the vice mayor specifies, wants to be taken hand in hand and in collaboration with the Institut Fraunhofer-Gesselcha (a leading institution when it comes to international innovation).
For the deputy mayor, precisely, one of the pillars of this alliance with the German institute wants it to be the future Health Campus, which will revolve around the new Trueta.
"We want there to be a collaboration, and that the Fraunhofer Institute, which already does research for companies and has opened lines of collaboration with other cities in the field of health, also does so in Girona," Geis specifies.
The deputy mayor gives as examples lines of research that the Fraunhofer has already opened with hospitals in Denmark, and advances that what the City Council wants is to "weave a strategy" with the institute, which adds the new Trueta to these investigations (in parallel to the project and the construction of the new campus).
