In the framework of the Sectoral Conference on Internal Trade, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and the Secretary of State for Trade, Xiana Méndez, took stock on Monday of the evolution of the subsidy lines to support the commercial sector included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and presented the news for the 2023 calls.
In 2021 and 2022, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism mobilized about 258 million euros to improve commercial activity through 227 projects; of these, 9,497,875 euros have been allocated to Castilla-La Mancha, to finance 9 projects in various lines.
In a disaggregated way, for the three market projects an aid of 2,060,467 euros has been approved; for the four projects in the rural area an aid of 1,795,605 euros has been allocated and for the projects in the tourist area, the aid has been 2,951,869 euros. The rest, 2,689,934 euros, corresponds to the line of aid of the Technological Fund managed by the autonomous communities (CC.AA. ).
The ‘Technological Fund’ to support the digital transformation and sustainability of small businesses has an allocation of 100 million euros to be distributed equivalently in 2022 and 2023. This fund is managed by the Autonomous Communities and is aimed directly at small and medium-sized businesses in the commercial sector that can submit their applications individually or through their associations of traders. In 2022, the first 50 million euros were transferred, currently in the process of being awarded, and of which the 2.6 million euros mentioned correspond to Castilla-La Mancha.
In total, the aid that the commercial sector will receive within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan will reach 415 million euros from 2021 to 2023.
New Calls for Proposals 2023
The Sectoral Conference also addressed the innovations for the call for the three aid lines for 2023. Among them, the evaluation of projects of the implementation of technological solutions to improve the efficiency of energy consumption in the commercial sector stands out.
In addition, the financial allocation of the rural areas support line is increased by 22 million by 2023. The line of sustainable markets will remain at 60 million and the line of tourist areas will have 24 million.
Finally, the results and the programs foreseen in the framework of the annual agreement between the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism and the Chamber of Commerce of Spain for the development of actions to improve the competitiveness of the retail trade through the regional chambers of Commerce were reported.
Recovery and growth of employment in trade
The commercial sector continues to be a very important source of employment for the Spanish economy: 9.1% of the total number of employed people in the economy are employed in retail trade. Thus, retail employment recovered in the last year and grew by 2.2% in 2022, standing as the highest rate of the total in the series, as shown by the INE Occupancy Index.
On the other hand, according to the INE Retail Trade Index, average sales at constant prices in the whole of 2022 grew by 0.8% compared to 2021.
Finally, consumer confidence has gradually recovered since the second half of 2022 according to the monthly Consumer Confidence Index (ICC) developed by the Center for Sociological Research.
More information:
https://comercio.gob.es/es-es/prtr-comercio/Paginas/Plan-de-Recuperacion-Comercio.aspx