The Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC) has already generated 10,690 net jobs in the archipelago since its creation, according to provisional data at the close of 2022 presented at the first Board of Directors meeting of the entity held this week. Only in 2022, the ZEC experienced an employment growth in its covered companies of close to 18%, which meant the creation of more than 1,600 jobs.
The companies covered by the ZEC, which are already 760, employ an average of 14 workers each, compared to the 12.4 employees that were counted the previous year, according to the “Management Report 2021” of the public body. In Lanzarote there are 51 companies covered by the ZEC, with an investment commitment of more than 10 million euros and 389 jobs for the next two years.
In the analysis of business behavior during 2022, the incorporation of 15 large business projects stands out, characterized by creating a number of jobs greater than required, making investments greater than 250,000 euros and being linked to strategic sectors for the economic diversification of the Canary Islands such as audiovisual, marine-maritime, IT, renewable energies or R&D.
The importance of creating quality employment for the Canary Islands makes this data very relevant, and reinforces the role of the ZEC in its main role of creating stable and well-paid work.
The ZEC was presented in the United States, Japan, Canada and Norway
Regarding investment attraction activity, it has participated in 92 actions with an increase in the weight of promotion in the areas of information technology, marine-maritime and R&D&I, and with an increase in activity in markets such as the United States, Japan, Canada or Norway.
The president of the ZEC, Pablo Hernández González-Barreda, pointed out that, “despite being a year of uncertainty and economic instability caused by the invasion of Ukraine, the institution continues on its line of growth”. “The ZEC instrument is increasingly refined. We are more effective and efficient in attracting and consolidating companies that create quality employment,” he stressed.
Hernández pointed out that the management strategy of recent years, focused on the selective attraction of entities with greater added value, continues to bear fruit. “In this new phase we focus on quality indicators, and we observe two especially relevant ones: the increase in the proportion of active companies and the average employment per company,” he remarked.
ZEC companies can now sell merchandise without it passing through the Canary Islands
During the first Board of Directors meeting of the organization, the first companies dedicated to wholesale trade were also authorized with the possibility of trading with merchandise anywhere in the world after the entry into force of the General State Budgets for the year 2023, which once again include triangular operations in the Canary Special Zone.
With effect from January 1, 2023, and with indefinite validity, ZEC companies can operate with merchandise anywhere in the world without it passing through the Canary Islands. This applies both to those authorized prior to entry into force - which included them in their reports and were authorized - and to those authorized subsequently, in both cases for tax periods after 2023.
This measure, together with the clarification of the treatment of intangibles and air transport, will improve the legal certainty of the regime and will allow even more employment to be created in the future.
