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Pedro Sanchez at Marca Espana Spain Announces €3 Billion Digital Boost To One Million Small Businesses Spain News

Spain announced on Wednesday that it would be allocating around €3 billion of EU recovery funds in the digital transformation of more than one million SMEs and self-employed businesses.

The country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced the plan for the so-called ‘Digital Kit’ at the 8th Annual Congress of Multinationals by Marca España.

The program will run until 2023 with an initial pot of more than €500 million and will aim to digitally transform the country’s legion of smaller businesses and self-employed freelancers.

The funds will be shared among one million businesses with between 10 and 49 employees.

Sánchez acknowledged the challenge to get the country back on its feet again following the Coronavirus pandemic and stressed the importance of transforming small businesses.

"On this path it is evident that we cannot leave SMEs behind, because they represent the bulk of employment and also of the business fabric."

According to the most recent social security statistics, there are currently around three million small SMEs operating in Spain with a similar number of self-employed autonomo workers. This suggests that the funds will most likely not be available to everyone.

However, he did confirm that the initial €500 million was just a starting point and that the remaining funds would eventually be distributed to other businesses that qualified for the support.

We will continue with funding for SMEs of other sizes at a later stage.

We are talking about very relevant, very important amounts of money, which can have a crucial transformative effect from the point of view of digitisation, sustainability and competitiveness,” he added.

The Prime Minister stated that over the next three years, the Spanish economy will experience “an unprecedented modernisation”.

He stressed that he wanted Spain to be an attractive destination for foreign investment.

Spain is at the forefront and “there is no time to lose,” Sánchez concluded.

Source

https://www.thelocal.es/20211125/spain-to-give-digital-bonus-for-one-million-self-employed-and-smes/
https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/presidente/actividades/Paginas/2021/241121-sanchez_marca_espana.aspx

Image Credit: Pool Moncloa/Fernando Calvo/La Moncloa