After the City of Light focuses again on the audiovisual sector, the Valencian president Ximo Puig look for new locations to extend the Digital District. An initiative with which it seeks to attract technology companies and which, after inaugurating its new buildings in the port of Alicante, now looks at what was once one of the city’s great fishing industries, the old ships of the Amaro González group in the port itself.
The president explained that the Generalitat is working on a project to convert the old Amaro warehouses into a ‘hub’ of enabling technologies from which to transfer innovation to the entire production system. This is the space occupied by the Alicante business group that was born linked to the fishing sector in the port itself.
Although Amaro González later extended his activity to distribution and frozen products, the fishing business that he brought to Panama was the bulk of his income and was also what led to his liquidation last year.
The Generalitat precisely plans to allocate funds from the European Union, through the Feder 2021-2027 programto install in the port of Alicante this center for the transfer of new technologies, linked to activities such as the autonomous car.
More space for companies
Puig presided over the inauguration of the new headquarters of the Digital District on quay 5 of the Port of Alicante, which has received an investment from the Consell of 13 million euros. The attraction of technology to Alicante is one of the socialist’s star projects for that city in the middle of the electoral campaign.
The new Digital District space consists of four buildings with all the necessary services for the implementation of ‘startups’, companies and multinationals, with a maximum capacity of jobs for 560 people.
The five headquarters of the Digital District currently house more than 90 companies and more than 1,000 workers, with groups such as Accenture and Indra, as well as startups from different sectors.
Marina of Valencia versus port of Alicante
In the case of these spaces in Alicante, the ownership of the spaces to house these companies remains in the hands of the Alicante Port Authority. Precisely in the case of La Marina de Valencia, the Port Authority is now retaking these concessions, after the liquidation of the public consortium between the State, the Generalitat and the City Council in the midst of a conflict with the Valencia City Council and with some of the promoters of the spaces for startups, such as Marina de Empresas de Juan Roig.
