Alert for the “silent death” of many SMEs due to the entry of speculative investment funds

2023-10-01 06:30:18

The president of Pimec, Antoni Cañete, warns that the influx of investment funds with speculative interests is causing a “silent death” for many SMEs and a “closure” of the Catalan industrial fabric. Cañete regrets that the employers’ association has been denouncing this situation for “a long time”, again topical after the Celsa ruling, and calls for a rethink of taxation for this type of fund. The president of Pimec warns about the loss of the weight of industry in relation to GDP by about ten points since 2000. “We went from 29% to 19%. The drop in this percentage is due in large part to what many industrial companies have been bought and today closed precisely because of this action“, add.

The president of Pimec explains that the sentence of Celsa or the entry of the Saudi STC Group as the first shareholder of Telefonica has put this issue “at the forefront”, but he regrets that for years this situation has been occurring between small and medium-sized Catalan companies.

For this reason, the president of the employers’ association is asking for a “reflection” on what kind of taxation these funds should have and that it be legislated “thinking about the real economy and not the fictitious economy that is bread for today and hunger for tomorrow”. In this sense, Cañete also calls for a review of the bankruptcy law and that “there really is a commitment to responsible investment”.

Cañete insists on the need that SMEs are part of the social dialogue “once and for all” and put an end to this “anomaly”. The president of the employers’ association demands that small and medium-sized companies be placed “on the bridge of command and that legislation can be carried out on a small scale as is being done in Europe”. “While in Spain the SMEs do not sit in the social dialogue with their own voice we can say that we have not finished with the Transition”, says Cañete, who on the other hand values ​​that in Catalonia and Europe they do have a presence.

“Crusade” against delinquency

Cañete celebrates that recently the European Commission, through its president Úrsula von der Leyen, confirmed the intention to sanction companies and public administrations that do not pay within thirty days and he recognizes that this question has become his “crusade”. «Companies are dying for liquiditythere are companies that can have a lot of orders and be extraordinarily successful but if they don’t have liquidity they close”, reiterates Cañete.

The president of the employers’ union criticizes that the State has not been able to fight against this phenomenon and that the law against delinquency was “biased”since although it establishes that it was necessary to pay within 60 days, except if there was an agreement between the parties and which, according to the complaint, left the door open to large companies to extend this period.

Now that it will be regulated at European level, Cañete says that he trusts “blindly” in its application because compliance will be mandatory i all control and reporting mechanisms are created in the face of delinquency situations.

Regarding the political situation after 23-J, Cañete shows “total respect” for the configuration of majorities in the Congress of Deputies and calls for a government to be formed as soon as possible. “We need strong, stable governments and above all to respond to changes”, adds the president of the employers’ association, who wishes that a repeat election would mean more uncertainty, harm the economy and prevent the approval of some budgets, among others.