The City Council creates a catalogue of business services specifically for local commerce

• This is the first step in the adaptation and creation of a specialised advice service for this sector

Barcelona City Council has created a catalogue offering business information and advice services to the city’s local commercial establishments. The Department of Commerce and Barcelona Activa have, for the first time, adapted and designed a series of services and programmes specifically for local commerce, with the aim of improving the competitiveness of the sector and the professionals that work in it.

Earlier today, Montserrat Ballarín, the Councillor for Commerce and Markets, emphasised that “commerce is one of Barcelona City Council's strategic lines. For this reason, we are promoting specific services and programmes to provide new tools that can help to improve businesses, give a trader's professional career greater prestige and favour generational changeover. We need Barcelona’s commerce to be a real economic driving force, generating good-quality employment. In order to achieve this, we know that it is vital to develop an Ongoing Training Plan for traders”. Ballarín made these comments during the presentation of the 2017 Programmes and Services Catalogue for Commerce.

With the main objective of promoting and preserving the city’s local commercial establishments, this is the first step in the adaptation and creation of a specialised advice service for this sector. It is the result of a needs analysis carried out in the commercial sector based on the challenges it faces, and takes into account the specific characteristics that differentiate it from other business sectors.

It offers a set of individual services and joint programmes to the city’s entire retail business community, not just those who are starting out, but also those with lots of experience.

The catalogue includes a service providing information and training on municipal procedures specifically designed for commerce, business financing, hiring workers, and advice on internationalisation and transferring the ownership of businesses. Existing services are also included, for example, the “Open to the Future” programme, which offers professionals individual training in competitiveness and innovation.

It is important to highlight the change of direction in training the professionals and boards of the city’s traders’ associations. The aim is to support them in developing their associations along more managerial lines and the socio-economic promotion of their areas of influence. In addition to classroom training, both programmes include personal and collective support for implementing the changes.

The programme also gives a special mention to territorial work, with proposals for improving the integration of commercial establishments in their surroundings and cooperation between different establishments in the same area, as well as continuing to raise the profile of any commercial establishments that request it through the "Commerce Online" project that ends this year.