Spanish government offers industry €49 million
Spain’s parliament has approved an aid plan for the country’s leather, leathergoods and footwear sectors.
It said its objective was to make sure levels of employment in these industries—currently 40,000, having declined steadily in the course of this century—fell no further.
In a press conference after the session of parliament, vice-president María Teresa Fernández de la Vega said the plan would be in place for seven years and will have a budget of €49 million. She said the government wanted to make the Spanish leather sector more competitive and to guarantee its ability to continue “in the context of the international competition that globalisation inevitably brings with it”.
The government will fund the plan from its job-creation budget and from a special budget it has set aside to offer aid to industry sectors that must adjust to “structural changes in global commerce”.
Among the activities the government has said it will fund are training programmes to raise skill-levels among Spanish leather workers. However, some of the money will provide benefit to former workers in the sector who have lost their jobs, offering them higher levels of support as they try to get back into work.
