The Alicante Investment Attraction Office has brought together a group of experts to evaluate the public and private financing channels available for business projects interested in landing in the city, and to establish lines of action to improve them.
ALIA – Alicante Investment Agency has organized a new session of Strategic Intelligence focused, this time, on public-private financing channels. The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Local Development Agency of the City Council, with the presence of the president of that agency and councilor of Development and Employment, María del Carmen de España.
As for the experts invited to this session, the following participated: Manuel Illueca, general director of the Valencian Institute of Finance (IVF); Eduardo Viana Doñate, head of the Cooperation Service of the Valencian Innovation Agency (AVI); Germán Agullo, CEO of GDV Mobility; Alfredo Boquera, director of Territorial Distribution of Banco Sabadell; and Iván Reche Lillo, trustee of Fundación Emplea and CEO of R2 Innovación.
During the interventions, it was emphasized that public financing entities “have the challenge” of “adequately” communicating and informing potential recipients of the different existing financing channels, as well as the application and subsequent justification processes.
There has also been a call to “strengthen and build a culture of investment and innovation” by private investors, which, in the opinion of the participants, would generate “public-private financing channels for companies”, including the more traditional sectors, as well as startups and technology projects.
Coordination and strategies
With regard to the role of public organizations, the “need” to work in coordination on policies related to the territorial strategy, industrial and housing policies, as well as strategies that facilitate the development of local capacities and opportunities that act as “investment drivers” and business and economic development in Alicante, was highlighted.
Another aspect on which the experts agreed was the importance of “promoting and publicizing” the “key and proven” success stories in the local environment, in order to “encourage” other entrepreneurs and companies “to count on the financial support” of the institutions and banking entities, since they are examples for which “financial aid has been definitive”, as they indicated.
The session emphasized the strength and consolidation of the city’s business associations, while highlighting the “improvement” in collaboration between public institutions and the banking sector.
Likewise, the existence of science and technology parks, the “proven potential of ideas and entrepreneurial projects”, and the cultural roots that act as a facilitating element for Alicante to have “great projects that would have an even more advantageous position in other cities or countries” were also praised.
Lines of action
Within the approach of the session, a set of lines of action have been proposed, among which are planned the “improvement of communication”, the creation of “coordination mechanisms” between institutions, the “simplification” or “clarification” of the procedures for obtaining aid and its subsequent management.
In this regard, the creation of an “agile” framework for the resolution and response to the detection of opportunities, the signing of collaboration agreements between public-private entities, the training and education of administration agents in charge of informing and advising companies and entrepreneurs, and the creation of a “one-stop shop” model for advising entrepreneurs and companies have also been proposed.
