The small and medium-sized shipyards grouped in Pymar, including the main ones in Asturias, and the state-owned shipbuilding company Navantia yesterday presented a great joint tractor plan to the first call of the PERTE of the sectorconsisting of 41 projects in which 95 companies participate (including shipyard supplier groups, auxiliary industry and other links in the value chain) with headquarters in Asturias and nine other autonomous communities.
The first call for the PERTE (Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation) of the naval sector, for which the deadline for presenting initiatives expired yesterday, mobilizes 200 million in public support through 120 million in aid from the European Próxima funds Generation and 80 million as loans through resources from the general state budget.
The proposal promoted by the alliance of Navantia and Pymar – the association chaired by the Asturian businessman alvaro plateropresident of Astilleros Gondán– aspires to a maximum public aid of 100 million and foresees a joint investment of more than 219 million. The contribution to the initiative of specific companies or of each of the autonomous communities involved has not been specified, although knowledgeable sources confirmed the participation of the Asturian naval and industrial sector.
The so-called tractor project of Pymar and Navantia includes initiatives for the diversification of the sector towards marine renewable energies and low-emission ships, as well as plans to promote the digitization of the naval industry, the improvement of its environmental sustainability and a transversal plan training and professional recycling for the training of its staff.
The project promotes, according to its promoters, the intersectoral technological interconnection of the entire production chain and phases, and includes industrial research and experimental development of equipment and component prototypes. Pymar and Navantia pointed out yesterday that this will contribute to the “creation of the ecosystem that allows the development of an innovative shipbuilding industry, with strong traction over other economic sectors and the generation of new activities”.
The Spanish public and private shipyards are concentrated in seven autonomous communities, but companies from ten regions participate in the project by bringing together companies that support the shipyards in the various links of their manufacturing process.
The General Secretary for Industry and Small and Medium Enterprises, from Gijón Francis Whitehighlighted the great coordination of Pymar and Navantia that have made this project possible, as well as the effort of the entire sector, “which has shown that it is capable of working together to continue promoting its modernization and guaranteeing its competitiveness in the coming years”.
In addition to the prominent presence of shipyards in Asturias (companies in the region, with facilities in the Principality and Galicia, currently account for 56% of the contract portfolio of the entire Spanish naval sector), the Principality has companies that They work for the naval factories, as well as groups that are well established in the development and use of offshore wind energy, in the case of Windar, allied with the state company Navantia in El Ferrol for the construction of support equipment for offshore generation parks. .
The naval PERTE foresees more calls in the immediate future. The Government aspires that the sum of all of them allow a total investment of 1,460 million, of which 310 will be a contribution from the public sector and private investment will amount to the remaining 1,150 million. The objective is to make possible a transformation and modernization of the sector in its broadest sense (including the related activities that support it) through public-private collaboration that guarantees the future competitiveness of shipbuilding in Spain and the generation of up to 3,100 jobs. job.