The Diplomat
Madrid Investment Attraction (MIA), the Madrid City Council’s investment attraction office, plans to manage around a hundred foreign investment projects in the city by spring 2022, according to a note from the municipal corporation.
Since its creation in 2018, MIA has been advising and offering coworking spaces to initiatives from other countries that want to set up or consolidate in Madrid. So far this year it has already attended to nearly 70 projects and since it started operating the number has risen to 300.
In 2020, Madrid absorbed 75.2% of the total gross Foreign Investment (FDI) in Spain, despite the pandemic, with close to 18,000 million in gross productive investment, 23.6% more than in 2019.
As Daniel Vinuesa, deputy director general of Investment and Talent Attraction at MIA, explains, the role of the office is to attract investment and talent to the city. “We guide foreign investors in the process of setting up in Madrid, free of charge and from a public entity, something unique and which is not found in other countries,” he says.
MIA offers investors information on aid and incentives for companies for training, employment, research, etc.; on the legal framework in Spain for hiring, dismissing and relocating expatriates; on the types of companies that can be set up; on the tax system to be taken into account; and on the legal steps to create a company or the procedures necessary to start up a new industrial facility. “In an average of 13 days, with only 7 procedures, a company can be set up in Madrid”, adds Vinuesa.
The office also provides a ‘softlanding’ service, with assistance in the necessary procedures for incorporation and opening, and free coworking space for the first installation and start-up of activity in the city.
MIA accompanies and promotes networking for investors on foreign business missions to Madrid: contacts, meetings with potential partners, clients, suppliers, business associations, etc.
For MIA, attracting foreign investment and talent is a priority in innovative activities, with a strong technological component and generating added value such as BigData, Cybersecurity, Fintech, Digital Health or Video Games. Its aim is to promote and encourage the arrival of foreign investment that enriches the local productive fabric – especially in these sectors -, generates employment and joins the collective project for a more sustainable, balanced and inclusive Madrid.
The entity works in collaboration with both public and private entities to achieve these objectives. It has agreements with the Cybersecurity Cluster, the Fintech Cluster, the Big Data Cluster, the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, the Exporters’ Club, CEIM Empresarios de Madrid, bilateral chambers, embassy trade offices, Foro de Empresa por Madrid, Madrid Platform, etc.
MIA has permanent agents in London, New York and Beijing (soon also in Miami and Mexico), to serve local investors and companies that may be interested in Madrid.
