The Lanzarote and La Graciosa Chamber of Commerce appointed José Valle as its new president last Wednesday, after the constitutive session of its plenary. This is the third term of this recent Chamber of Commerce, since its creation in 2005, succeeding Eduardo Spínola and José Torres Fuentes in the presidency.
The president has explained in an interview with Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero what his objectives and lines of action will be in this new stage.
How eager are you to join this Chamber, which has needed elections for some time?
First of all, to be fair to the outgoing president, I have to recognize that he has done a good job. He has had to live through several crises, especially in the last one, where the Chamber played a fundamental role in the management of aid. Possibly, if this institution had not mediated, it would have been very complicated, because the aid is very bureaucratic and the Chambers were the solution.
Now comes a new stage. I like to be a person open to all media and have the option of explaining things, even when I do it wrong or disagree. Regarding the challenge, I believe that Lanzarote faces some years in which we have to be very fine from the business sector, because we have had a very bad time. Lanzarote, together with Fuerteventura, have been the two places in Spain where GDP fell the most due to Covid, tourism stopped dead and that has destroyed the business fabric.
We have to be very skilled in managing the reconstruction fund that is made with the Next Generation funds, and we have to provide companies with all kinds of tools so that they can choose to reconvert their economies. This is a very powerful challenge where we have to maintain the line that had been working, but above all adapt the institution to new challenges, so that Lanzarote becomes a benchmark and emerges strengthened from the recovery.
Sustainability and digitalization are other issues to be addressed and we must also talk about airport infrastructure and what we want to do with the tourism sector. The idea is to draw up a 10-year plan and find out if we want to continue in a tour operation and mass movement or we want to start changing and balancing this balance towards a model where the tourist values our complementary offer, our zero kilometer and our artisans. We must take care of the island because what the tourist is looking for and what they come to see is our environment.
How has this business union been achieved in these elections?
In the last two years, a movement of business union has emerged, where the island's sector left all its personal interests for a single objective, which is Lanzarote. I had the responsibility of leading it and what I did was work and give sufficient arguments to all the businessmen, insisting that this was the path we had to follow to improve our island.
When the elections to the Chamber of Commerce arrived, I came out unanimously and they gave me that vote, almost without asking for it. They told me "hey, why don't you lead this project too because we believe that Lanzarote now needs a legislature where we work together from the business sector".
I don't see war right now and there can't be war between the business sector and the public sector, we have to understand each other and I'm going to put everything in my power to reach an understanding with any political party and with a single objective.
The former president did a very good job, but ended with a tremendous war with parties and administrations. Are you going to build bridges again on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, beyond parties, with public administrations?
That is one of my main objectives and I can guarantee that in two or three weeks at most, the Chamber will be collaborating with all the public administrations of the island regardless of political color. I consider this from minute number one because now it is the need that the island has.
I am not here to play at being a politician, I am here to lead a business organization and we have to be very responsible as I said at the beginning, because we have had a very bad time, the business sector is very touched, it seems that we are still with "the way on and getting into medicines". Those of us who are in the first position have to be responsible.
Be sure and I guarantee that from today we will begin to attend to the hand and sit down to talk. We have to see what has been done wrong in this time and learn from the mistakes, but above all collaborate at an unknown speed so that Lanzarote comes out reinforced, because in the end who comes out reinforced are also our citizens, our companies, our fabric, which is what we need today.
In the previous stage, some of the major issues that the Chamber led were the own port authority, which did not come out, and the expansion of the airport runway, which also did not come out. Are you going to take them up again or have you set another roadmap?
The first thing I need is to take office, in fact I have not yet been able to take office physically in the Chamber, but I plan to start working with all the teams as soon as possible to make a plan in relation to the projects and see what are the lines that we are going to continue and what are the lines that we are going to incorporate, although I already have some in mind.
The first thing is going to be the issue of training, because Lanzarote must choose in the coming years to lead this area in the Canary Islands. It is important that Lanzarote can have relevant dual FP centers, because we are increasingly receiving complaints that we do not have trained personnel. It is a hobbyhorse with which I am going to get very serious and I am going to give sufficient arguments, even to the government of the Canary Islands.
On the other hand, we have to take a look at the city because I think that Arrecife has been very stagnant in the last 20 years and it is no longer a matter of political color, but rather of where the investments and needs have been placed. Arrecife deserves to be at the same level as the rest of the island, because if we take an average grade, the capital may be lowering the grade in general terms.
The ports will be another issue to be addressed, because although I believe that port management has been very good, we must continue to provide our ports and adapt them together with the airport. I don't know if it is necessary to expand the airport runway, but what we are going to have to analyze, both with the administrations and Aena, is that we need a different airport than the one we have.
We have gone from having a picturesque and unique airport to having a generalist one that can be in any city and there are certain days where there is no room in the terminal even to sit down, at least in the national flights, so we have to start working on adapting it. Our tourists pass through the airport, but we also deserve it the residents who live in Lanzarote, we have to have the same facilities as the rest of the islands.
Although the idea is to draw up an island plan for the next 10 years, we will also logically carry out urgent actions, but we need to know where we want to go and what type of tourism we want to have. So for the moment, we have to make a small reflection and analyze everything very carefully because we have to consolidate the recovery and in that the Chamber will have to be a very main actor.
Is that project that you say you are going to launch going to need the voice of the Arrecife City Council? Or the less it participates the better?
The City Council has to be a key piece so that we can reform and update our capital, we could not do it alone, what we have to give it sufficient arguments and see that the business sector is united. It will always be easier if we give tools to the City Council.
In addition, I believe that Arrecife has an internal organization problem, regardless of the political color that manages it. We are going to have to work on all that, but what we cannot do is take it for granted, that another 30 years pass and the capital gets worse.
Bilbao, for example, had many problems in the 80s and has managed to transform itself, regardless of the political party. Is the problem that there is no city project here?
Precisely the model that was followed in Bilbao is the one we are studying to be able to transfer it to Arrecife, because I believe that there has to be a very powerful public-private collaboration, draw up a roadmap to X years, which is what they did in Bilbao. We are going to put all the meat on the grill so that a situation like the one you mentioned can occur in Arrecife.
We have to get it to be a project of society and if we get it to be a project of society, we are all going to have arguments to support it and I take this as something personal.
I am here to add, I love my island so much, that what better than if we had a great capital that is in accordance with what we really represent and that these three million tourists pass through the capital, through Arrecife. For that reason, we are going to boost commerce, give it value, it is a great job that we all have to do, but we are going to see how it is given in this candidacy.
Another of the novelties of this Chamber is that it has a vice president and many women on the committee.
We have tried to make the plenary so well represented that all sectors of the business society have their space and within what is the executive committee what we have done is distribute it in 50-50, it seems to me that it was the most reasonable.
It is about committed people who come to work because we have a lot of work, I would like the presidency to logically be present in all places, but that we can somehow sectorize a little the distribution of tasks because that way we reach many more people and many more projects.
In the Chamber there have been elections and what we have tried is, well, adapt to the new times I think it was essential to do it and especially with people and I said it yesterday. We have a great responsibility not only with the institution that I think is at a very high level but with the society of Lanzarote because we have to take advantage of the fact that our first stop is that the recovery arrives and that the investments arrive in Lanzarote, everything that we have been more or less talking about that begin to see that and that will depend on us, so the executive committee was very well thought out.
We have a vice president, who is Mamen Martinón, who will surely accompany me much more in the management and there is a management team that deserves this.
Previously, there have been tensions between the Chambers of the Canary Islands, especially with that of Gran Canaria. Do you have any kind of plan to collaborate with them?
Just on Thursday the president of the Chamber in Gran Canaria took office, each day it will be done on an island and logically I have not been able to make a collaboration movement yet, but I am in talks for a week with Luís Padrón, who will be the next president.
I am characterized by where I have been, young entrepreneurs, representing the self-employed, I am in the Lanzarote Business Circle, and I can say that there will be one hundred percent collaboration, the objective is to open the institutions to other institutions and collaborate among all.
For me a collaboration with the rest of the Canary Islands Chambers is fundamental and I am not here to make war. Of course we have to defend what our interests and rights are and nobody is going to take that away from me, but we also have to understand that the best thing is to reach a point of collaboration, that a war between everyone, I at least will be one of those who put more peace with the rest of the Chambers.
Returning to the issue of the port authority, the other day we learned that an investment of 23 million euros is coming. Therefore, do you plan to park the idea of the independent port authority?
The first thing I would like is in these days to have a conversation with Luis Ibarra and that he explained to me well what is the opinion of the region, of the Canary Islands, why Lanzarote should not have or should have a port authority and I will also take the opportunity to see in the Chamber what is the feeling that today there is on this issue.
If we want to go towards a port authority and it has to be the objective, then we will go towards a port authority, but I also want to see what are and see what is in terms of investments that there are in Lanzarote.
In the coming years we believe that the Canary Islands could be the hub of Europe to provide support with Africa and the entire team can play a very good position.
I see here a very beautiful project, I have to fight so that part of the investment and future projects stay and develop in Lanzarote and in that I will work because what I want is that my economy grows, diversifies that within what we can and we will see what we get, but we have a very good line of work in this regard.
