The Regional Minister of Economy and Industry, María Jesús Lorenzana, announced during the conference ‘Galicia’s strategic dialogue with the aerospace, security and defence sectors’, the Xunta’s intention to carry out the first call for proposals by the end of 2025, which will define which companies and technology centres will work together to promote this industry, as well as the investment programmes to be implemented over the next five years.
Lorenzana closed a meeting with companies and entities linked to these sectors, to whom he presented the strategy approved by the Xunta to open a process of strategic dialogue, with the aim of finding out first-hand the real needs in the short, medium and long term in order to adapt the support and investment instruments and thus obtain the best results to promote a security and defence industry in the Community that also includes the aerospace sector.
Industrial potential
The Regional Minister pointed out that the aim is to mobilise all of Galicia’s industrial and technological potential in the field of defence and dual application technologies and to generate a significant demand for products, systems and services, in line with the priorities set by Europe. ‘What the European Commission is asking of governments and administrations is that we work to generate a strong industrial base around the defence sector, which must be considered not as a productive expense but as a strategic investment,’ she said.
In this regard, he stressed that previous analyses carried out for the development of this strategy concluded that Galicia has a high capacity for the manufacture of 75% of the types of components and services required, ‘which gives an idea of the opportunities that our companies will have’, she said.
183M€ in five years
To this end, he specified that 183 million euros will be allocated over the next five years with the forecast of mobilising up to 900 million euros, and with the aim of attracting companies from other strategic areas such as the naval, automotive, metal or ICT to these segments of activity and to materialise new industrial investments.
In terms of financing, a Dual Technologies Investment Fund will be activated in XesGalicia (€40m) to support projects and, within the Igape’s Economic Office, a specific area of business advice will be created.
Lorenzana concluded by encouraging companies and knowledge centres to actively participate. ‘We believe that Galicia is really well positioned to be a target for attracting investment in this sector,’ he stressed.