Economy, Tax, Economic Promotion and Tourism

Here we will be launching a large-scale initiative for training digital talent as one of our biggest initiatives to promote our digital capital status. We will be training 3,000digital professionals over the coming five years under an ambitious initiative, the IT Academy, launched through Barcelona Activaand the Cibernàrium digitaltraining centre, which is also backed by the private sector. It will be a programme aimed at young people as well as at re-skillingprofessionals from other sectors keen to retrain in the digital field.

Digital capital in terms of innovation must continue to be driven by public authorities to establish new spaces to facilitate economic activity in the city. To this end, and through Barcelona Activa and other operators, we will open three new spaces for economic activity during this term of office: 

• Palo Alto 
• Lluís Companys Stadium 
• Olympic Port 

All of them will be spaces that will necessarily have to be open to collaboration with civil society, orienting them towards different economic sectors, through a call to join the projects.

We cannot talk about being a digital capital without referring to a key factor of our global positioning, the Mobile World Congress. This congress is an example of what Barcelona can achieve when it combines ambition, inter-institutional collaboration and the support of civil society. We want the city to be at its best during the Mobile World Congress. But ordinary operations are not enough: the city has ensured that it will host the event until at least 2025, ensuring its global positioning in this field and, internally, continuing to strengthen the digital economy at local level. This initiative is being led in collaboration with all the institutions promoted by the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation.

We will make new resources available to the city's companies to support them in their digital transformation processes. These new resources will include an individualised consultancy service to design the digitisation plan, which will have sectoral experts who will advise depending on the type of company and its business model, and new training itineraries that will help to implement the plan.

Development of a technical-professional training plan as a key tool to increase the employability of workers. Online and face-to-face training actions are proposed in the following strategic sectors of the city: 

• Industry 4.0
• Creative and cultural industries
• Green and circular economy
• Tourism
• Sports
• Health and care
• Blue economy
• Local commerce

We want Barcelona to act holistically in the digital empowerment of residents by positioning the city as a hub for digital training. This action is structured on the basis of rolling out digital training and an economy strategy and is based on the following projects: •Expanding the IT Academy, which trains new professionals in cutting-edge technologies through re-skilling. •Telefónica Foundation’s School 42: a free and innovative educational model for training young people as software developers. •Boosting STEAM vocations: a programme for boosting knowledge, skills and technological vocations with a gender perspective. •Cibernàrium’s digital strategy: a key training tool within the city’s ecosystem which will enable service provisions to be adapted to digital channels.

Barcelona City Council wants to make a structural commitment to talent, a concept based on the potential of people as a driving force for social innovation and business competitiveness and for the creation of quality, inclusive employment that drives social progress. To achieve this, we will promote a specific government measure that strengthens and values the connections necessary for the generation, development and attraction of talent in the city, and that also links the promotion of talent with the values of the Barcelona brand, as a benchmark destination for carrying out life and professional projects.

In addition to the importance of generating talent and retaining it in our city, we must also make a commitment to recovering and attracting talent that has fled. To achieve this, we will promote a plan for the return of talent, which will allow us to encourage the return to Barcelona of young people under the age of 35 who emigrated, especially because of the economic crisis. Through this plan, we foresee that it will be possible to start promoting the return of several hundred young people we have already detected who are interested in returning to Barcelona; in this way, we will ensure that their migratory experience becomes an invaluable professional and cultural contribution to the city, and we will offer them a portfolio of services tailored to their needs and interests.

We will set up the International Welcome Desk or Centre to offer face-to-face attention to international talent, and we will locate it in the MediaTIC building, in the heart of 22@, together with the Business Service Office. This space will become a powerful one-stop shop for international professionals on their arrival in Barcelona, to facilitate all kinds of municipal procedures and also to provide them with advice on aspects linked to the social and community life of the city. With this we will reinforce a comprehensive 360-degree strategy throughout the year with numerous activities to welcome international professionals and facilitate their settlement and integration to become new Barcelonians. This includes a major annual event, which in 2020 will be Barcelona Expat Week,with webinars, workshops and online networking and, if the health situation allows, also face-to-face meetings.

We will make a commitment to the mastery of English in the Administration, not only with regard to those who visit us, but also as a critical tool against obsolescence and as an element that adds value to us in various aspects. In this sense, we will promote the possibility of carrying out municipal procedures in English, as well as the training of municipal staff in English and the inclusion of this language as a positive element in the system of access to public administration.

The Think Net project will enable Barcelona Activa to position itself as a benchmark at local, national and international level in terms of reflection, development policies and economic promotion. This Think Net will be a platform for the generation, dissemination and interaction of knowledge on ideas and trends for the development of public policies.

In addition to improving the competitiveness of their associated establishments and promoting them, business owner associations have a social responsibility as promoters of integration and innovation, disseminators of social relations and participants in community dynamics. They are and must be agents of social and economic development of the territory. 

Likewise, business associations are a fundamental tool for defining and implementing, from the territory, strategies that respond to the specific challenges of each moment. The quality of management and the type of activities of business owner associations are fundamental in developing trade. 

On the one hand, it is a matter of promoting actions and projects that strengthen, professionalise and transform trade associations and, on the other, of generating innovative models of public-private partnerships (PPP), such as urban economic promotion areas (APEU).

Digitisation is changing consumer habits and thus commercial relations with customers. However, many shops still have no or only a very basic internet presence, and it is not common for them to establish online communication elements via a website or social media. 

As we have seen during the months of confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digitalisation is no longer an option for retailers, but a necessity. Barcelona's shops must have loyalty systems and online sales. 

Barcelona City Council will contribute with a line of subsidies to help improve the level of digital maturity of establishments, and will promote a digital platform that makes them visible and allows online shopping (Tiendas Abiertas). Facilitate the digital transformation of commerce. Digital technologies must become an ally of local commerce and a new opportunity for it to grow. It is essential for businesses to be well positioned on social networks and to open and promote online sales channels. Barcelona City Council will contribute to this transformation through grants and other actions.

Several subsidy programmes will be activated to modernise and strengthen local commerce and a new boost will be given to seasonal promotional campaigns, with the collaboration of the sector's representative associations that raise consumer awareness of the importance of local commerce, due to the value of the links it establishes with people. 

A new Christmas campaign will be developed to promote local shops and position Barcelona on the international stage as a city of shopping, through a programme that brings a range of quality cultural, leisure, scientific and sporting activities to shopping areas. In this way, the Christmas campaign in the central area of the city will be consistent with what is happening in the neighbourhoods. 

Barcelona has 43 municipal markets, which are the engine of the city’s 73 neighbourhoods, and the leaders of local retail and benchmarks for health and sustainability. In this sense, more than 100 million Euros has been allocated to the transformation and improvement of the city’s markets. 

The “Barcelona Markets” model is committed towards the development of the markets following a Mediterranean model that unites people and commerce, fulfilling the special role in the construction of the city and its social, economic and urban organisation. 

The context of the health emergency of 2020 which is still valid today has strengthened the need to accelerate the process of digitalisation.  Especially in terms of boosting the digital Marketplace and the general plan of works, improvements and maintenance(PGO) for markets.

The street level establishments greatly boost Barcelona’s commercial and service activity. This is due to the high density of the city's commercial fabric, which is associated with a high rate of use of commercial space.. In this sense, there is commitment to reducing the number of empty premises in the city and promoting their sustainable use as a strategic asset, diversifying their uses and ensuring the balance of activities in premises in the different districts and establishing a collaboration between public, private and social stakeholders. 

7 strategic measures will be rolled out, including official protection of ground floors (BPO), the ground floor rental exchange, their own marketplace and subsidies for the installation of new commercial activities.

The effect of the pandemic has had a direct impact on different sectors of the city's local economy, so the City Council is allocating a total of 20 million euros in subsidies and direct aid, which are aimed at the sectors most affected by the situation generated by COVID-19. In this sense, the action aims to activate the city's economy, providing support for the productive fabric in those necessary investments that promote both the survival and reopening of establishments, or that have a transformational dimension aimed at their competitive improvement, adaptation or reorientation.. 

The de-carbonisation of the economy, the reduction of the ecological footprint and the improvement of air quality are major challenges that must be faced by all economic sectors of the city, including small businesses. 

Good environmental practices will be promoted within the sector: improving the energy efficiency of establishments, encouraging responsible consumption by residents and reducing the ecological impact of commercial distribution by implementing last-mile goods distribution centres. A new sustainable retail category will also be created in the Barcelona Retail Awards. 

Consideration will be given to the need for urban lastmile goods distribution centres, the use of zeroemission vehicles and intelligent transport technologies. Fiscal measures to reduce the impact of negative externalities arising from physical door-to-door distribution by large companies will also be explored.

Trade is a driving force for employment and the economy, but it also defines the physiognomy of neighbourhoods. Residents’ quality of life will depend on the layout, quantity and size of establishments as well as their diversity or specialisation. For this reason, knowing the commercial fabric is the same as knowing the quality of life in our city. In recent years, it has been undergoing a rapid transformation as a result of changes in consumer habits. This transformation, as well as the need to generate knowledge to plan and execute commercial policies, require a continuous tool to know the state of the city's ground floor at all times. 

Therefore, this census becomes a key tool to support residents, retailers and Barcelona City Council in achieving three objectives: 

• Analysing trends, finding out movements and discovering new formulas and innovations.
• Having quality knowledge available to stimulate decision-making.
• Offering tools to all the players involved in commerce.

Specialised and personalised service to support selfemployed individuals, SMEs and the social economy ecosystem in identifying and obtaining the most appropriate aid for their situation, by means of the following actions: 

• Working together with the company in the diagnosis and definition of the best itinerary to obtain the financing they need. 
• Providing advice according to the specific needs of each company and giving support in the process of sourcing and obtaining resources.

One of the objectives we have set ourselves is to increase the contribution of tourism to Barcelona. Every year, more than 18,000,000 visitors sleep in the city, generating wealth for our economy, but they also represent an expense for our public services, from cleaning to security, challenges that force us to take necessary measures, and also to monitor illegal tourist housing and the challenges of coexistence that the City Council has to mitigate through its public services.

Just as Barcelona will either be an economy and culture or it will not, Barcelona will either be metropolitan or it will not. This is why Barcelona Tourism, one of the greatest exponents of public-private collaboration, has become an institution that we must "metropolitanise". To manage the tourism challenge, we must be able to project ourselves in the world by extending the city's tourist perimeter and diversifying our offer beyond the heritage icons that have brought us extraordinary worldwide recognition. 

To achieve that, we shall be incentivising and helping the creative industries, culture, sports, research and the region itself to create new tourist spaces and new mindsets, which bring together the utmost interest of Barcelona’s residents and, at the same time, become new centres of attraction, to ensure our visitors become part-time residents of Barcelona.

We will create an economic fund to encourage the production or importation of new cultural content, provided that this involves and implies an exemplary and culturising value. 

This fund must be created with the collaboration of civil society, thus following a tradition of complicity and patronage that has allowed such important cultural institutions as the Macba, the Miró Foundation or the Tàpies Foundation to be set up in Barcelona, and that keeps the flame of such successful private initiatives as the Vila Casas art projects or the Egyptian Museum, to cite just a few examples of reference.

Creation of a Tourism and Culture congress to establish an agreement between both sectors with the aim of creating new value proposals to incentivise aspirational tourism. A congress aimed at establishing an agreement between culture, creative industries and tourism to create new value offerings to incentives aspirational tourism and local cultural production.

We will promote a new international economic promotion strategy. The new strategy will set the city's priorities in terms of city promotion, both in strategic sectors and in priority geographical areas, in order to identify and take advantage of economic and investment opportunities from abroad, working together with the city's civil society. This strategy will continue to focus on improving the long-range connectivity of Barcelona airport and attention to the international economic community as key assets for the city's economic development.

The start of 2019 saw the presentation of the brand book Barcelona’s identity and positioning. A group effort, as a result of the participatory process with local and international agents for the co-creation of the new story of Barcelona. This process gave rise to the new brand idea and the signature alwaysBarcelona. Other global cities also promoted similar processes, such as I Love NY, Be Berlin or I Amsterdam. Once the new city brand story has been defined, we now have to build the reputation we want for our city, and this is a constant and collective task that we will promote through the development of a specific plan for the Barcelona brand, which is a very important asset for our economy. We will do this with the signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding for the identity and reputation of Barcelona: Port, Airport, Mobile World Capital Foundation, FC Barcelona, Barcelona Metropolitan Area, Barcelona Provincial Council, Acció, Barcelona Global, Fira de Barcelona, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, PIMEC, the Zona Franca de Barcelona Consortium, Foment del Treball, the Catalan Association of Public Universities and the Turisme de Barcelona Consortium. We will also be launching an international campaign focusing on-key messages such as connections, talent and initiative,as well as a brand-resilience barometer to measure the development of the city’s international perception and positioning.

The City Council, together with civil society initiatives, will promote the creation of new tools for public-private collaboration, such as an agency for attracting international investment to go abroad in search of companies that want to set up in Barcelona, and to facilitate and accompany their process of landing in the city. We want to go in search, with determination, of the big names in technology and the business ecosystem to convince them that Barcelona is one of the best places in the world to locate the headquarters of their companies.

In order to have a presence throughout the world, in those areas that we consider strategic from the point of view of economic opportunities, we will promote large economic and business missions, with a high level of institutional representation and also with the involvement of various sectors of the city, which will allow us to enhance the promotional impact of these economic diplomacy initiatives. These large missions, Barcelona Week, should be promoted on an annual basis, taking advantage of the organisation of some commemorative, cultural or sporting event, within the framework of Barcelona's strategic markets.

During the health crisis, the City Council has carried out a series of briefing actions aimed at protecting the city brand and with global opinion-generating operators to encapsulate Barcelona's reputation from the bad trends in the environment. Keeping information networks upto-date with embassies, consulates and foreign chambers of commerce on Barcelona’s economic activity.

The aim is to maintain the prestige of the Barcelona brand and reinforce the values that make the city different and its international positioning and projection. We will carry out an international reputation campaign in the international media, in coordination with all local agents, in order to develop promotional campaigns in economic terms in the international sphere through the different digital media available.

As part of the "Barcelona never stops" communication campaign, a specific section has been set up to bring together actions and proposals to stimulate tourist activity among the local population as a way of encouraging consumption and contributing to the recovery of economic activity. The most important of these are the launch of Barcelona Panorámica, a tourist bus route aimed primarily at the local public, with reduced prices and departures every weekend in summer, which has been very well received. 

Barcelona Tourism has offered all the consortium's member companies a platform for publicising their promotions, which it has set up under the name of Barcelona Marketplace. This platform, which has also received support in its dissemination from Barcelona City Council, brings together more than two hundred leisure activities, visits, trade, culture, restaurants, etc., which are offered to the residents of Barcelona.

The situation generated by the pandemic led the Barcelona Tourism Consortium to reformulate the entire work plan for this year, and a total of 44 actions have been defined in parallel to the de-escalation process and conditioned by the gradual reopening of air connections, as well as to outline long-term objectives and consolidate Barcelona's positions in strategic areas such as meeting tourism and LGTBI tourism. 

Priority has been given first and foremost to the local public, with the launch of the Barcelona Marketplace, which brings together more than 200 leisure, cultural, commercial and gastronomic activities and proposals. Work has also been done on a new promotional campaign, with a strong digital component, aimed at local, national and European markets, which will be launched soon. Constant contact has been maintained with national and international operators, such as WTTC, ETOA, ECM, sharing data and strategies to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 crisis.

With the aim of helping the business fabric and accompanying it in a process of reopening under safe health conditions, the BCN Safe City-Safe project has been set up.Visit has been launched as an online advisory service for any business linked to the visitor economy. A free report can be obtained through a simple form, featuring the measures, protocols and certifications that are most relevant to this area of activity. A fact-finding exercise has been carried out on all the initiatives adopted by the authorities and certifying organisations. 

Companies that can access this service include those connected to accommodation, restaurants and bars, night life, transport, amusement and leisure parks, cultural and sports activities, shops and markets, travel agencies, guides and protected natural spaces.

We will promote a reduction in red tape and barriers to economic activity for businesses, professionals and the general public, in order to encourage and facilitate anyone with an idea to develop it in the city. In this sense, we will associate Barcelona with the onestop business shop and we will set up our own single business portal, with the aim of speeding up and improving efficiency in the city-administration relationship and simplifying the procedures for entrepreneurs of new activities in the city.

From January 2020 onwards, new entrepreneurs will no longer have to pay taxes for starting up an economic activity. This is a measure that can help professionals to take their first steps and operate their activity in line with the recommendations of the Doing Business Report.

These extraordinary moments of crisis have required the activation of a raft of measures focused on recovery, and which are aimed at both companies and the general public. However, in view of the large number of changes put forward, it is proposed to create a tool to accompany those receiving aid. Thus, it is proposed to create a tax office to provide tax assistance and advice for the general public and businesses, which will be able to deal with all doubts and queries related to the new tax measures. It will also promote the implementation of a new tax calendar to make the payment of the different municipal taxes more flexible in order to alleviate the economic and social consequences of COVID-19. 

In order to increase the liquidity of companies supplying the Administration, we will reduce invoice payment periods to 20 days. In this way, the economic tensions derived from the loss of activity caused by the health crisis will be minimised, at least in everything that depends on the City Council.

Making the terms and deadlines for the granting of subsidies more flexible with the aim of speeding up payment deadlines as much as possible and accelerating the arrival of liquidity to the activities benefiting from aid.

Start-ups are a key player in our economic ecosystem, as they are a driver of innovation for the local productive fabric, magnets for creative talent and foreign investment, and key players in positioning the city's brand on a global scale. For this reason, we will participate in investment funds that operate in the city and have investment policies aligned with our priorities, in order to promote the creation and growth of start-ups in our ecosystem, especially those linked to strategic sectors.

Anyone who wishes to receive assistance to deal with issues relating to job hunting, financial aid for companies, starting up a business or receiving training can call the free helpline on 900 533 175 (set up by Barcelona Activa in 2020). The services provides assistance and information and makes referrals to specialist services and resources better adapted to individual needs. The telephone helpline operates Mondays to Fridays, from 9 am to 6 pm.

We will promote an agreement for quality employment in Barcelona to agree specific measures with the city's trade unions and socio-economic agents, as well as networking with entities that collaborate in developing actions to improve employability and the insertion of people. In this sense, we will also re-launch the debate on the minimum wage, accompanying it with measures that necessarily take into account the evolution of the cost of living with respect to equality, stability and quality of employment. 

Among other issues, we will also have to specify measures to promote a higher quality of employment with regard to new forms of work (platform economy), which are committed to wage recovery and which reduce the wage gap.

We will be working to achieve a new agreement with the Catalan Employment Service (SOC), which will enable us to speed up the creation of a consortium to oversee skills areas including planning, management and implementation of active employment policies.

Economic transformations must come with a transformation and adaptation in people’s skills. For this reason, we will reinforce and improve the guidance and improvement processes for the employability of the groups that most need it, placing emphasis on continuous adaptation to technological changes and the demands of the labour market. 

We will do this by implementing a new comprehensive employment service model that encompasses professional guidance, intermediation, the office model and the technological applications necessary for more integrated action, and we will design an information system for employment in the city.

This is a new line of subsidies for direct hiring for the self-employed individuals, SMEs and businesses in different sectors of Barcelona's business fabric. This line of subsidies is aimed at the creation of new contracts with a minimum duration of 6 months. The maximum amount of the subsidy is 5,000 euros. It may not exceed 80% of the annual wage cost, in order to ensure compliance with quality employment criteria

Definition of a new city employment strategy, adapting it to the needs arising from the new post-COVID context. This will be rolled out in the form of 86 actions distributed in 7 lines of measures: governance, support for the unemployed, support for vulnerable groups, promotion of training, promotion of quality employment, promotion of youth employment and local economic development. 

An initial planned budget of €37 M will be allocated, and an extraordinary investment of €25 M will be added to boost economic recovery and minimize the impact on job losses

We want to make a commitment to economic sectors that create quality employment. Therefore, we will deepen the inclusion of social clauses in public procurement, both as an element of job creation for vulnerable groups and from the perspective of guaranteeing compliance with quality standards in employment or gender equality, to fight against job insecurity in the public sector.

Creation of common meeting spaces for the business and employment communities with the joint BizOccupació fair to promote the recovery and interaction of the business ecosystem and the reactivation of the labour market. With more than 260 activities and conferences by the two spaces, with the aim of boosting business to generate economic growth and job opportunities. Its programme has been divided as follows: 

Biz-Barcelona, with five thematic areas:

• entrepreneurship, growth, new challenges, new realities, start-ups, business innovation and Talent Arena. 
• Salón Ocupació: learn more, delve in, discover, prepare and share, as well as the Talent Arena.

Through a shared drive with the federations and the fabric of companies and entities that represent the diversity of families in the social and solidarity economy, we will draw up a 2020-2030 city strategy in which we will define the direction and priorities in this area for the whole decade. This strategy must bring to the table many of the challenges and opportunities common to the entire economic fabric (digitalisation, quality of work, platform economy, ecological transition, etc.). 

We want to ensure growth in this area in the city without losing sight of its specific values, consolidating municipal policies and services, as well as promoting new benchmark infrastructures, such as what is probably the largest cooperative incubator in Europe, in the Can Batlló complex.

Guidance and training services for social and solidarity economy projects and enterprises at Barcelona Activa, and especially the activities of the InnoBA centre and the strengthening of the InnoBAdora, a space and community for the incubation of SSE enterprises. 

"Lift up the SSE: advice on social and solidarity economy in times of COVID-19". Specialised and personalised service that accompanies social and solidarity economy enterprises and organisations in their reactivation due to the impact of COVID-19 in relation to financial aid, legal issues, financing, communication, management and team organisation.

Desenvolupament de programes de suport al finançament de les empreses de l’economia social i solidària:

• Enfortim ESS: subvencions de fins al 80% per finançar la creació i l’enfortiment de cooperatives, entitats i projectes de l’economia social i solidària. Es prioritza la creació, la consolidació i la intercooperacióen l'impuls de projectes d'interès per la ciutat.
• Crèdits cooperatius per reactivació del teixit ESS: fons de crèdit publico-cooperatius amb Coop57 i Fiare Banca Ètica per impulsar línies de crèdit per l'ESS a la ciutat de Barcelona
• Impulsem el que fas: subvencions de fins al 80% per finançar projectes individuals o col·lectius que impulsin l’economia als barris.

Espai de referència de l’Economia Social i Solidària a Barcelona i dispositiu d’incubació cooperativa i de suport a l’ESS més gran d'Europa al districte de Sants-Montjuïc. 

Una inversió en la infraestructura i col·laboració amb el teixit de l'ESS pel desenvolupament i consolidació de l'activitat col·lectiva i de gestió comunitària entre el veïnat, l’Ajuntament i el moviment cooperatiu que s’ha de realitzar en aquest recinte rehabilitat.

El context actual ha evidenciat la necessitat d'incorporar la dimensió digital, a més de suposar un mitjà d'impuls de l'economia col·laborativa i fons d'innovació en prestació i accés als serveis i, en general, de interrelació i cobertura de necessitats. 

A través de la col·laboració amb el món universitari s'impulsa el Programa SharingCitites per impulsar l'economia col·laborativa al servei de les persones i la ciutat incloent: 

• Digital Match Impuls: 6 programes d’impuls digitalització i plataformització empreses i clúster empresarials 
• Captació de finançament per a projectes i recerca
• Recerca aplicada i especialitzada en aquest àmbit

We will soon be presenting a 2020-2030 strategy for pushing ahead with what we call  the economy for sustainability, thought up with a holistic vision and which incorporates specific updates also inspired by international experience, articulated around three sequential and complementary vectors of action: 

• Streamlining and removing barriers (bureaucratic, administrative and cultural) that currently represent obstacles to investment in the green economy. For example, we will review the set of administrative procedures that currently need to be followed in order to make energy efficiency improvement investments. These investments, at the aggregate level, are generators of economic activity and employment. 
• Accelerating decision-making by individuals and companies wishing to invest in energy efficiency, creating incentives that accelerate change and multiply the impacts in terms of sustainability, but also in terms of generating economic activity and employment. 
• Regulating (obliging) new economic activity wishing to set up in the city to be aligned with sustainability values and existing activity to adapt to new environmental paradigms

We will develop the Besòs axis as the city's new green axis to give a new boost to economic activity and employment linked to innovative industrial activity (Industry 4.0) and the ecological transition. 

A space in which to bring together industrial SMEs that are committed to the new Industry 4.0, to the green and circular economy, which generate quality employment and added value.

The Besòs eco-district, also promoted in Action 29, must be a catalyst for "green" economic activity, innovation, knowledge and talent. Coinciding with the Besòs Campus promoted by UPC and the Besòs Consortium, as a hub of knowledge, research, innovation and entrepreneurship linked to the green economy. In the coming years, in this space we plan to create a new incubator for emerging "green" companies that can take advantage of all the innovative potential and talent that will be generated from the Besòs Campus and link it to the economic and business ecosystem of the city.

Within the packages of acceleration measures that form part of the strategy of the new BCN Green Deal, and which we agreed a few days ago in the framework of the approval of Barcelona City Council's 2020 budget, I would like to highlight the creation of a fund of up to 50 million euros that will serve as a lever for private investment, as well as an instrument for co-investment with other funds from other administrations and private entities, in order to advance in the acceleration of this transition. 

This fund will not only mobilise financial resources for productive investments, equipment and housing, but will also indirectly accelerate the consolidation and growth of companies working in the energy and sustainability value chain in a broad sense, which will generate employment in quantitative and qualitative terms.

In 2015, along with 200 other cities around the world, Barcelona signed the Milan Pact, promoted by the FAO, in which we committed ourselves to working for new sustainable, healthy and fair agri-food models for the whole world. Barcelona will be the World Sustainable Food Capital in 2021 and will host the world meeting of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, which is an opportunity to set the agenda for cities in this field and a boost to urban food policies at both municipal and metropolitan level. Therefore, throughout the year 2021, food will be a central theme in our city, in a proposal in which we want to involve civil society based on a threefold vision: 

• Addressing the health problems arising from the evolution of our diets and food.
• Rethinking our agri-food model, which is responsible for between 20% and 30% of the emissions that cause climate change.
• Seizing an economic opportunity, especially for the agri-food sector and for the local commerce and catering sector, as there is a growing public demand for local and organic products

We also need to boost the generation of photovoltaic energy and energy rehabilitation by giving a boost to related economic activity. For this reason, we will activate two lines of action: one internal, from the municipal government (in terms of taxation), and another with which we will work to reach a strategic agreement with the economic sectors of photovoltaic energy generation and energy rehabilitation, in order to promote energy communities, new operators and, especially, the generation of job profiles in this field.

We will tackle major urban reforms in order to give them the necessary economic dimension, transferring this logic to key areas such as the Olympic Port, 22@ and the Zona Franca, and, furthermore, we will incorporate this vision into the major infrastructures that will be developed by the city in this decade.

In order to move from economic strategy to urban implementation of projects with greater efficiency, and to be able to pay joint attention to economic development initiatives in the territory, we will define a joint strategy of urban planning and economic development, initiating this logic in the 22@ area, given its special uniqueness and as a key sector for reinforcing Barcelona's potential in the technology sector.

We will roll out a plan to support industrial parks, with major transformations in areas such as Torrent d'Estadella, la Verneda Industrial, Bon Pastor and other sites. And we must also intensify the urban character of the Zona Franca through urban planning, maintaining productive activity in this area, but also increasing tertiary uses, with a commitment to Industry 4.0, the ecological transition, digitalisation and 3D printing.

We will review the urban planning instruments necessary to promote a strategy to re-economise the central area of the city, with the aim of implementing new areas of economic activity in the centre of Barcelona that meet a triple premise: they must be local, entrepreneurial and innovative.

We will work to ensure that the Spanish Government has a shared agenda for Barcelona in terms of infrastructures, in order to improve our connectivity and competitiveness, which addresses the following key elements: 

• Completion of the Sagrera rail junction and high speed rail.
• Investments to improve the local train network. •Expansion and improvement of connectivity: a sustainable port and airport. 
• Mediterranean corridor.

The creation of a creative industries cluster in the city in order to facilitate their internationalisation and a better use of their transformative potential for the local economy as a whole, represents a major opportunity for the future. With our sights set on 22@ North, we will turn the Glòries Design Hub into a space for creative and business promotion around the creative industries, such as design and fashion. We will accompany this initiative with the promotion of policies that favour the dynamisation of the sector, such as the creation of a large international fair for creative industries that will facilitate the growth and consolidation of medium-sized companies in Barcelona, or the creation of new spaces that will allow Barcelona to become a city that exports projects.

The transformation of the Olympic Port that we are going to promote, with the aim of recovering it as an attractive space of activity for all residents, represents an opportunity to also generate a cluster dedicated to the blue economy, where all innovative initiatives related to the world of sailing, sustainability, commerce, catering and services linked to the maritime sector can be developed.

In the strip between Gran Via and the city's beaches, a public-private support structure will be set up to boost and energise the urban innovation zone of the Barcelona coast, conceived as a supra-territorial, complementary and collaborative resource in terms of R&D&I cooperation. The BIC will be articulated through the deployment of a series of cross-cutting instruments to promote innovation in the strategic areas of ICT, mobility, energy and health in order to consolidate this territory as an international benchmark in innovation and as a driving force for the 2030 Agenda and sustainable development, as well as a world capital of technological humanism and people-centred digitisation. The instruments that the BIC will develop are the following: 

• An intermediation instrument between R&D and innovation.
• Creation of a venture builder for the 2030 Agenda.
• Specific sandbox models to test solutions in strategic sectors.
• A package of benefits to attract and retain innovative companies. • An employability training plan to boost local talent