José Manuel Soria, Minister of Economy and Finance, announced this morning that "soon" the regional Executive will send to the Advisory Council a draft amendment to the Guidelines of the General Territorial Planning and Tourism to "try to activate the construction sector that is currently in decline".
The Minister insisted that this measure does not mean the construction of "more tourist beds", but that "what is done will be of quality". Quality is an "objectifiable" concept, according to Soria, which is demonstrated in the establishments of "four and five stars superior". What "is not quality are the apartments of forty years ago that have not been updated".
The Minister acknowledged that in recent years in the Canary Islands have been built projects of very high quality "that are insufficient" to compete with other markets and meet the demands of quality tourism. Therefore, these modifications contemplate "greater flexibility" in the bureaucratic procedures that promoters and investors must carry out.
Until now there have been cases, according to the Minister, of promoters with a project and financing "for different obstacles and absolutely unnecessary regulations" have not been able to develop it. Therefore, he insisted that "flexibility is putting fewer obstacles, fewer obstacles, we must let entrepreneurs do within the framework established by the Law".
Soria denied that there were differences in the regional Executive on the convenience or not of promoting the second residence. For the Minister, the problem of the Canarian economy "is the lack of activity". Therefore, this draft amendment to the Guidelines will make "very clear" that the Canary Islands has to bet on quality projects "without using one more meter of land".
ACN Press
