The Rioja companies that want to participate in ICEX Next have the deadline until December 17 to sign up for the ICEX Spain Export and Investment program to help Spanish SMEs and startups that want to grow internationally.
During the 24 months of the program, the Rioja companies that are beneficiaries will be advised by specialized consultants and approved by ICEX, who will design an international strategic business plan and follow up throughout the process; supported by financial aid of up to € 24,000, to cover the internationalization expenses of their companies. And all of it through the Territorial Direction of ICEX in La Rioja.
A total of 26 Rioja companies have benefited from the programme since 2012. By sector, 11 are wineries (42.43%), 10 belong to the agri-food sector (38.4%), 2 in the footwear sector (7.6%), 2 in services (7.6%) and 1 in construction services (3.8%).
Significant increase in regular exporters
Another very significant figure has been the increase in regular exporting companies, with data from September, reaching an historic maximum in La Rioja: 724 companies, which has meant an increase of 5.8%, an 8% in value.
Of this figure, 45.3% are regular, while in 2023 it was 36%. And what is more relevant: the regular ones export 96.6% of the total, that is, 1,733 million euros.
This fact becomes especially important because to be a regular exporter it is important to have an international Strategic Business Plan, which is precisely what the ICEX Next program offers.
The requirements to qualify for ICEX Next are to be a Spanish SME or startup with its own product or service and its own brand; to have a minimum annual turnover of 300,000€, and to have a business strategy in which internationalization takes priority.
Twelve years of existence
In the last four years, 1,748 Spanish companies have benefited from the ICEX Next program. Most of the participating companies have so far come from Catalonia (384), the Community of Madrid (284) and Andalusia (215).
The participating companies invoiced 4.6 million euros on average per year per annual call, with 29% coming from their exports. By sector, 32 per cent of the participants in the programme were industrial products and technology companies, followed by those in the service sector (31 per cent), the agri-food sector (16 per cent) and consumer goods (21 per cent). Likewise, these companies had an average of 25 workers at the time of requesting their participation in ICEX Next and of the total number of beneficiaries, in each call, 28 on average, were startups.
All information and registration of applications in https://icexnext.es/