The Board will launch an emergency plan for agribusiness

The Board, unions and employers developed by the end of the year a strategic plan for the Andalusian food industry, which will run until 2013 and whose core task will be to refocus public support towards quality, the exit to the outside and increasing productivity. This was explained yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture, Martín Soler, after meeting with the secretaries of regional UGT and CCOO, Pastrana and Manuel Francisco Carbonero, and the chairman of the CEA, Santiago Herrero, who agreed to design such a plan for boosting and strengthen one of the main industries in the community (employs 52,000 people and more than 13,000 invoice million euros annually). Soler said that the program aims to encourage an increase in productivity in the sector by reducing costs and increasing the size of the companies. The second axis of the initiative will wager on quality through innovation and research, while the third is to open new sales channels abroad. The counselor said that the initiative will be supported by financial incentives of the order, which is about 100 million euros a year. He also indicated that has been appropriated in the budget for 2009 a provision of 120 million in loans and financial guarantees, for companies "solvents" that needed liquidity to ensure its continuity. He also recalled that the rural development plan of the European Union, which has more than 5,000 million euros until 2013, contains provisions for the improvement of facilities and infrastructure in rural areas, just the environment in which it is located agribusiness Andalusia.