The delegate of the Consortium, Fran González, has received four representatives of the Alentejo Regional Development Agency (ADRAL), Sines Tecnopolo and the City Council of Santiago do Cacém, in the framework of a business mission to Andalusia
The visit is part of the interest of the Portuguese entities to learn about the Incubazul project of the Cadiz Consortium and to be able to take references and create connections with its "Alentejo Azul" initiative, also focused on qualified entrepreneurship linked to the sea.
The Portuguese delegation has completed its visit to the Cádiz Tax Free Zone with a tour of the facilities of the Cetárea del Sur plant, recently expanded, and a benchmark in the province of Cádiz in the marketing and distribution of live crustaceans and molluscs
Fran González thanked the visit to the capital of Cadiz and called for "keeping the lines of collaboration open with the Portuguese region to establish synergies and share models and references in support of the creation and consolidation of companies in the marine sector"
It should be noted that both the Incubazul project and the Portuguese "Alentejo Azul" have co-financing from European Funds
A delegation from the Portuguese Alentejo and made up of different development entities in the region visited the Cadiz Free Trade Zone this afternoon with the aim of learning first-hand about projects and actions that are being developed around the Blue Economy in Andalusia and attracted especially for the project of the High technology incubator, Incubazul, of the Consortium.
With this premise, the State delegate in the Cadiz Consortium, Fran González, and part of his management team have held a working meeting at the Headquarters of the Tax Institution with the four Portuguese representatives who have presented the "Alentejo Azul" initiative. , which aims to promote a qualified and creative entrepreneurial fabric in the Alentejo region, supporting new ideas linked to the sea and water resources, promoting the creation and consolidation of new companies with more innovation and diversification in order to achieve competitive improvement of this Portuguese region.
The Portuguese delegation was made up of Tiago Santos and Joel Gomes, executive and financial director of Sines Tecnópolo; Anabela Caeiro, manager of the Alentejo Azul project for the Alentejo Regional Development Agency (ADRAL); and Joaquim Pinheiro, from the City Council of Santiago de Cacém, a Portuguese city in the District of Setúbal.
The four representatives have agreed that, given the connections and joint objectives of the “Alentejo Azul” project with the initiative of the Cadiz Consortium, Incubazul, they have wanted to contact and travel to the Cádiz Fiscal Precinct to learn first-hand all the details of the start-up of the incubator and to analyze and take references that allow the improvement of its processes and ideas in support of promoting qualified entrepreneurship linked to the sea and water resources.
In this regard, Fran González thanked the Portuguese delegation for choosing the Cádiz Free Trade Zone as a model for its commitment to the Blue Economy in the province during its visit to Andalusia and as a meeting point to establish a space for shared knowledge in relation to to this sector, one of the benchmarks of the Cadiz economy and which also stands out in the Portuguese region.
After a presentation of the history of the Free Zone, its connection with the sea, the current lines of management and a complete exposition of the Base Zone project and its technological incubator, Incubazul, the delegate of the Consortium encouraged "keeping the lines open of collaboration with the neighboring region of Alentejo to share and complement models in support of the creation and consolidation of startups and companies in the marine sector”.
For González, "today's visit is a source of pride for the Free Trade Zone because we see that Cádiz is consolidating itself as a benchmark in the Blue Economy and that our technological incubator is a focus of opportunity to attract technological talent both from the province as well as other points on the national and international scene, with the added value of having the support of Telefónica in the project acceleration program”.
“We reaffirm our commitment to a new model that is more sustainable and committed to the environment, championed by Incubazul and by all the opportunities offered by the marine sector – which encompasses subsectors as diverse as biotechnology, regenerative tourism, maritime and port transport. , aquaculture or traditional fishing gear, among many other applications – and that place it as one of the great sources of employability for the coming decades in Andalusia and throughout Europe”, explained the Zona Franca delegate, who has located also the visit in the context of the excellent relations that also maintain the Government of Spain and Portugal.
During the work meeting, everyone agreed on the importance of the support of the European Union for the development of these initiatives, since the "Alentejo Azul" project is promoted by the aforementioned ADRAL and Sines Tecnopolo, with co-financing from the European Fund for Regional Development within the framework of the ALENTEJO 2020 program; and Incubazul, as is known, has the support of the EU that co-finances it, through the INCYDE Foundation, 80% by the ERDF within the 2014-2020 Multi-regional Operational Program within axis 3: Improving the Competitiveness of SMEs, Thematic Objective 3 Improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises, and investment priority 3 Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit, in particular, facilitating the economic exploitation of new ideas, and promoting the creation of new companies, also through incubators.
Visit to Cetárea del Sur
The presence of the Portuguese delegation in the Fiscal Precinct of the Free Zone of Cádiz has been completed with a visit to the plant of the company Cetárea del Sur, which has recently expanded its facilities and is a benchmark in the province in marketing and distribution live crustaceans and molluscs.
The tour of the new facilities, which have gone from 365 m2 a 730 m2, has been guided by Irene Sánchez de Sardi, co-founder of the firm together with Ana Parrabano, who has been showing all the details of the company's operations, explaining all the technical details and the improvement in the capacity of the swimming pool area to maintain live crustaceans and molluscs, as well as the new mollusc purification line.
The representatives of the Alentejo have been especially interested in knowing first-hand Cetárea's commitment to Innovation in processes, which have involved an investment of close to 700,000 euros.
Thus, they have highlighted the capacity of this new machinery that allows for two lines of work: on the one hand, the maintenance of live crustaceans and molluscs in the pool area, which has a capacity of 3,000 kg per day; and, above all, the new mollusc purification line, with a capacity of 20,000 kg per day, also implementing the system called innopure in a closed circuit, which performs the cleaning of bacteria and organic matter from the mollusk in a natural way.
With today's visit, Cádiz reaffirms its great potential in the blue sector and establishes itself as a hub of opportunity to attract, capture and consolidate all the talent of national and European startups.
