The Diplomat
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, has travelled to the Slovak Republic to promote the arrival in Spain of new investments linked to the manufacture of batteries needed to boost the new electric and connected mobility.
During the trip, on which she was accompanied by the Spanish Ambassador to Slovakia, Lorea Arribalzaga, and the Secretary General for Industry and SMEs, Francisco Blanco, the minister met with the CEO and founder of Inobat, Marian Bocek, and the company’s president, Andy Palmer. Reyes Maroto also visited Inobat’s facilities in the nearby town of Voderady.
Inobat Auto is a Slovak company specialising in the research, development, manufacture and recycling of batteries, which plans to set up a new factory in Europe, with a planned investment of 3 billion euros. One of the cities shortlisted to host this factory is Valladolid, which has a good position in the automotive sector and a great geostrategic location.
In fact, the mayor of Valladolid, Óscar Puente, accompanied the minister on her trip, who had already signed a collaboration protocol with Inobat on 17 October to promote its implementation in Spain.
Slovakia is one of the most important European car manufacturing centres, employing more than 200,000 people, with Volkswagen, KIA, Land Rover and Volvo among the brands with factories in the country.
Reyes Maroto underlined in Bratislava that with her visit she wanted to “reinforce the Government’s commitment to the Inobat project, so that Spain, and specifically Valladolid, would be chosen as the site for its new factory”. “We have excellent human capital, first-class infrastructure and first-class know-how in electric and connected mobility”, she added.
“Spain is firmly committed to the electrification of the automotive industry and we are promoting investments in this type of initiative through the European Funds and the PERTE VEC, whose second call for proposals will be launched in the first quarter of this year.
Furthermore, during her official trip to Slovakia, Reyes Maroto met with the country’s Minister of Transport and Construction, Andrej Doležal, with whom she signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on tourism with the aim of increasing the exchange of experiences in this area, stressing that Spain can offer knowledge and advice to this Central European country interested in increasing tourism flows.
The Spanish government considers that the signing of this agreement is another significant step in strengthening bilateral relations in a year that marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, and confirms the interest of both countries in increasing and diversifying reciprocal investments.
The minister conveyed to her counterpart the Spanish government’s willingness to increase cooperation in tourism and invited him to visit Fitur, which will be held this week in Madrid. She also explained the lines of action of the future Spanish Presidency of the EU in the area of tourism.
