Spain will soon have a network of 25 European digital innovation centers designed to provide SMEs with digitization tools. This was announced yesterday in Valencia by the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, during the opening of the 5th Connected Industry Congress. This program will be launched in the coming weeks and has a budget of 37.5 million euros.
Its objective is to create a network in Spain "that allows taking advantage of the capacity of these centers to provide SMEs with advanced digitization tools that are necessary to successfully tackle digital transformation", explained the minister. This newly created network "also aims to achieve synergies, complementarities and returns with programs financed with national and European funds".
25 centers called Digital Innovation Hub will be created, one of them in the Valencian Community, to contribute to the digitization "of around 1,250 SMEs". It will become "the largest public-private collaboration center in the Community" in this field, hosting 48 entities.
Maroto stressed that the objective of his ministry is to accompany the different economic sectors in the green-digital transition. And the minister gave as an example of lasting and disruptive transformation the Volkswagen Group's gigafactory project in Sagunto, which she took for granted in her speech despite recent information that has cast some doubts about her arrival. The head of Industry assured that the gigafactory "is going to develop a new value chain linked to electromobility in the automobile industry".
He also highlighted another initiative of the Government in the Valencian Community: the next location in Benidorm of the Intelligent Platform of Destinations that will contribute to the digital transformation of the tourism sector. "All these programs are going to contribute to the digitization of our SMEs, improving their competitiveness and contributing to the generation of employment, especially among young people and women," said the minister, who stressed that it is the first time that this annual event has been celebrate outside of Madrid.
Next, Maroto participated in a round table moderated by the delegate of La Vanguardia in the Valencian Community, Salvador Enguix, together with the Secretary General of Industry and Productive Development of Argentina, José Ignacio Mendiguren, in which both agreed on the will of both countries to increase common industrial cooperation and with other Latin American countries.
Maroto highlighted the presence in Valencia not only of the Argentine government, but also of "important leading companies in key sectors of Argentina", with which it is intended to "define joint projects" and relaunch relations between the two countries, "turning Spain into a Latin American reference in good practices and promotion of SMEs".
Mendiguren indicated in his speech that during the pandemic, "the political decision to support the productive apparatus was adopted in Argentina, thanks to which there are currently 40,000 SMEs alive", and he has been convinced that the productive model must be changed in this country that has "in abundance" what the world needs, such as lithium, gas, oil or mining. In his opinion, these are new challenges that can be addressed together with Spain, and he has concluded: "If we succeed, Argentina will definitively come out of its chronic crisis processes."
The congress addressed the challenges in terms of digitization that companies have to face, from the toy sector, through the naval sector, to the energy sector. Round tables were held with representatives of these sectors and all agreed on the need to implement new technologies for the distribution of their products or services.
In the case of toys, to streamline manufacturing and online sales, which has grown in recent years. In the case of energy, to apply the use of hydrogen in industry, decarbonize it for greater sustainability, apply a price policy in Europe and guarantee security of supply.
