The Council of Ministers approves this Tuesday the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (perte) of semiconductorswhich has an investment of 11,000 million public euros to make Spain an outstanding center for the design and manufacture of these components.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who announced the plan a month ago, is presenting it at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he is looking for potential investors.
This new part will make it possible to advance Europe’s strategic autonomy after the bottlenecks caused by the shortage of these components in a large part of the economic sectors worldwide after the outbreak of the pandemic.
The most ambitious PERTE
With a public contribution of 11,000 million euros, the semiconductor component, announced in April by Sánchez, is the largest in terms of public funds of the eleven strategic projects announced to date by the Executive.
It is followed by the share of renewable energies, renewable hydrogen and storage, in which the public sector will contribute more than 6,900 million of the 16,300 million of investment that it intends to mobilize, and that of the electric and connected vehicle, with a contribution from the public sector of 4.3 billion and a private investment of 19,700 million.
The semiconductor company wants to promote and attract investments in the sector’s industry and related technologies, which will be key to achieving strategic autonomy and “will help Spain position itself at the forefront of industrial and technological progress”according to the Executive.
When announcing the project, Sánchez stressed that “semiconductors are a basic element of all sectors” and that “Spain is not going to lose the race to the most advanced technology”.
During the Davos Forum, Sánchez will hold meetings this Tuesday with the CEOs of four companies of reference in the sector: Intel, Qualcomm, Micron and Cisco.
The pertes, one of the main legs of the Recovery Plan, are strategic projects for the future of the Spanish economy that the Government is promoting with the arrival of European funds seeking collaboration between administrations, companies and research centers.
The Executive has launched eleven projects, of which nine have been formally approved, with a planned public investment of 30,000 million euros.
Little weight in the economy
The business network associated with the semiconductor industry in Spain has “Lightweight” in the national economy, according to the president of the employers’ association of the technology industry Ametic, Pedro Mier, although its impact is “extremely high”.
This sector invoiced 511,775 million euros worldwide during 2021, according to data from the organization World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS)of which 43,960 million corresponded to Europe, 8.6% of the total.
In Spain, there are specifically about 50 companies or research centers, including Wiyo, Imasenic, Kdopc and ICMálagaalthough there is currently no semiconductor manufacturing plant in the country.