Eight months have passed since the Council of Ministers approved the PERTE for microelectronics and semiconductors to position Spain as "a benchmark country in the design and manufacture of chips", but the sector is still waiting for the regulatory bases for aid , endowed in a millionaire package of 12,250 million euros.
Although in November, after a first official meeting with the sector in which Minister Nadia Calviño participated, it was already announced that the first aid would be launched in the first half of 2023, there is some urgency with the deadlines. Above all, they explain from the sector in the Valencian Community, because the competitiveness and international positioning of the firms are at stake.
“This is a strategic sector and we see that there is a lot to be done. The regulatory bases have not yet been published and we see that this will last until the end of the year”, explains Mayte Bacete, president of the Valencia Silicon Cluster, and director of MaxLinear Hispania, a company that is grouped in the cluster together with Analog Devices, to La Vanguardia. , Bosch, ams Osram, VLC Photonics/Hitachi, Das Photonics, IPronics and Industrial Governance, together with the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Valencia.
Bacete, who explains that he maintains a "direct line" with the Special Commissioner of PERTE Chip, Jaime Martorell and who knows of his interest in knowing in depth the needs of the sector, recognizes that times are pressing and gives as an example the problems that Ford encountered in the first call of the PERTE VEC, which he had to resign. He also observes that "flexibility is needed in the PERTE guarantees if we want it to serve to really boost the sector."
From the cluster they ask the central government for agility and also from the Generalitat Valenciana, convinced of the strengths of this sector. This is how Empar Martínez Bonafé, regional secretary for Sustainable Economy, explains it, who explains that "we ask that you hurry, but we understand and know about the difficulties of the administrative machinery. Although we would love it to come out next month because we are ready," he explains to this journal.
Proof of this preparation, of this anxious waiting at the starting line, is the approval last week of the PNL to promote a Valencian Semiconductor Strategy at the proposal of the PSPV in the Corts Valencianes. Making the most of the aid from this PERTE is one of the reasons that drives the cluster and one of the reasons that justify the approval of this proposal so that the Valencian Strategy can go ahead.
All the groups with parliamentary representation voted in favor of the Valencian Community putting it into operation, following the proposal for a European Law on Chips, from which the approval of the Government's aid plan derives. "We should be proud that all the parliamentarians have approved it and we feel it is a co-participation from the Valencian Government," explains Martínez Bonafé.
Together with the performance of an intense package of executive measures to support the Valencian semiconductor sector, the text, approved at the request of the Valencian industry, contemplates as a singularity the immediate launch of a communication campaign that promotes the Valencian Community as an ecosystem best developed in the country in terms of integrated microelectronics and photonics.
"The fact that we have 50% of the semiconductor production in Spain in the province of Valencia and that it was so unknown already says a lot," laments Martínez Bonafé, who assumes that "from the responsibility that I have, it was up to me to promote with all possible force the industry strengthening. According to sector studies, 50% of all national microelectronics human resources and 60% of integrated photonics, more than half of all specialized employees in the sector in Spain, perform their duties in the Valencian territory.
