LAVOZDELANZAROTE.COM
The president of the Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC), Juan Romero Pi, stated this Monday, during a working breakfast with the media, that the ZEC has managed to establish itself as a real tool for diversifying the Canary Islands economy, as evidenced by the data provided by the institution after five years of operation.
Romero Pi took stock of the consortium's management during 2005 and pointed out that "despite the fact that the extension" of the low tax area has not yet been clarified, the last year has closed with numbers that invite optimism.
According to the data handled by the technical staff of the fiscal instrument, the number of companies authorized in 2005, a total of 59, is in line with the average number of companies authorized per year.
If we look at the period of validity of the mandate of the president of the Consortium (he took office in October 2004), a total of 77 business projects have been included with an investment of just over 39 million euros and the creation of 610 jobs.
These figures, commented Romero Pi, would "skyrocket if the use of funds from the Canary Islands Investment Reserve (RIC) is allowed for the creation of ZEC companies".
Low taxation
According to the words of the head of the low tax zone, to these figures we must add the role that the fiscal tool plays when it comes to creating quality employment and new business fabric away from activities linked to tourism and the service sector. On the first point, Romero Pi commented that the ZEC's employment figures show very positive data.
"If we look at the figures provided by official statistics, we must take into account the role of the ZEC in job creation. If in the autonomous community as a whole, 61.06% of contracts are permanent, ZEC contracts are 78.81% permanent, that is, 17, 75 percentage points more".
It should be added, Romero Pi pointed out, that the vast majority of this employment is "highly qualified", a fact that further accentuates the interest in taking advantage of the particularities of the ZEC to create employment within the framework of an "economic policy with clear objectives".
It is also worth highlighting the importance that traditionally residual economic sectors have gained in the Canary Islands economy thanks to the existence of the ZEC. According to the data handled by the consortium, 21.66% of ZEC companies are in the industrial sector.
These companies in the secondary sector account for 34.14% of investment and 26.61% of employment. In the last year, the authorization of companies in the industrial sector has increased by 18.75%, a branch of activity that only employs 6.9% of the employed population of the Canary Islands.
Major instruments of economic policy
For this reason, Romero Pi insisted, it is necessary to effectively link the ZEC to the major instruments of economic policy of the Archipelago. In this sense, the president of the fiscal tool echoed the statements of the president of the Government of the Canary Islands, in which he suggested the use of the RIC to create employment.
"The ZEC would be an ideal instrument because at the same time as creating employment, it is an instrument that is proving to be useful when it comes to achieving the diversification of the Canary Islands economy", commented Romero Pi, who stressed that the REF and its different incentives must go beyond being a "mere catalog of tax incentives" to become a true instrument of economic policy.
"At present, too much importance is being given to the fiscal leg of the REF without taking into account that it also has a very important economic policy leg. If we continue to insist on the fiscal leg, the result is a lame REF", Romero Pi concluded.
