Acexpiel president hails plans for Igualada
27/11/2014
Catalonia’s regional government, La Generalitat, issued a statement on November 18 to say proposals for the new site had won initial approval and a public consultation exercise is now under way.
In a statement, Xavi Badia has told leatherbiz that the location of the new ‘Innovation Park’ will be ideal as it will give tanners better access to the motorway network and close proximity to the leather innovation faculty at a new campus of the Igualada Engineering School (EEI), which Mr Badia described as “a boost for our efforts to prepare the tannery professionals of the future, putting both talent and innovation at the service of the leather industry”.
Mr Badia, who runs Curtidos Badia and is also president of local tanning industry association, el Gremi de Blanquers d’Igualada, went on to say that the project will give tanners in Igualada the chance to modernise and expand their businesses and become more competitive in the international market. “Advantages that we already have in the Igualada tanning cluster will be reinforced,” he said.
A separate project on which the local authorities are working with el Gremi de Blanquers d’Igualada will also receive a boost from the development of the new cluster, Xavi Badia said. “It’s a project called ‘Igualada, European Capital of Quality Leather’,” he explained, “and is based at the redeveloped site of a former tannery, the Adoberia Bella. We want to become better known throughout Europe for what we do. We have a real industrial, educational and business heritage here. We have the cluster, the tanning school, technology centres, a common effluent treatment plant and two leather museums. Soon we will have the new ‘Innovation Park’ too. There is nothing else like this in the tanning industry in Europe in the twenty-first century.”
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