The Councillor for Economy and Knowledge, Antonio Ramírez de Arellano, has today encouraged businesses to form clusters and build a model similar to the one developed in aeronautics in Andalusia in those sectors where, by introducing innovation and attracting investment, they can gain competitiveness and conquer international markets.
The Economy minister visits AERTEC Solutions, a top-tier aeronautical engineering provider that already employs 500 people.
Ramírez de Arellano, who visited the Malaga-based company AERTEC Solutions, recalled that in Andalusia, with the collaboration of the Administrations and the private sector, “we have been able to modernise and build a successful aerospace cluster, who has set up a very powerful network of suppliers and generated thousands of jobs”.
For the councillor, the community “is in a position to repeat this success” in other sectors “where we also have sufficient experience, such as in the agri-food sector, for example.”.
On this path, he has explained, Innovation and internationalisation will be fundamental, two aspects that have been highlighted as key in the development of the AERTEC company, “whose condition as a top-tier supplier to Airbus is no accident, with an investment in R&D+i that doubled in 2015, reaching €1.5 million”. The company is also highly committed to R&D and has just launched its new programme “AERTEC Solutions Challenge”, which will award scholarships to university students who collaborate with the firm in the development of new aerospace technological solutions.
Alongside this, he recalled that the company's success, which now has some five hundred employees, is also due to the fact that it has been undergoing an internationalisation process for several years towards the United Kingdom, France and Germany, among other countries.
For Ramírez de Arellano, “internationalisation is much more than exporting out of the immediate need to overcome or circumvent a crisis; it is having and acting with a global vision, betting on talent and innovation to open new markets, build a brand, and compete on quality, not prices”.
On this matter, he recalled that the Junta de Andalucía is committed to this idea through the V Plan for the Internationalisation of the Andalusian Economy, which is in effect until 2020. It plans to reach 20,000 companies, create 425,000 jobs linked to foreign sales and achieve a volume of non-energy exports reaching 25,000 million euros (a 20% of the Andalusian GDP in 2020).
AERTEC Solutions was founded in a business incubator in Malaga in 1997 by two aeronautical engineers. Currently, it is the third largest aeronautical engineering company with Spanish capital, nationally, and the first in Andalusia.
Based in Málaga's PTA and Seville's Aerópolis Technology Park, it is already a preferred Tier 1 supplier to Airbus for manufacturing engineering and programme management services for aircraft, both civil and military, at its factories located across Spain, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.
The company has three business areas: airports, aerospace, and defence systems, and has a workforce of over 500 employees spread across Málaga, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona, Bristol, Toulouse, and Bogotá.
