Institut Català de Finances (ICF – Catalan Finance Institute) is the public financial institution owned by the Generalitat de Catalunya. The Generalitat is the institutional system by which Catalonia (the region where we are based) is self-governed as an autonomous community of Spain.
ICF’s mission is to improve access to funding for enterprises in Catalonia in order to contribute to the growth of the region’s economy, complementing the work of private sector finance.
This week, a team from ICF visited Banyoles, the town nearest to our headquarters and production facility.
The purpose of their trip was to encourage more local companies to avail themselves of ICF’s support and to advise them on how to do so.
Banyoles is a relatively small town. Even when you factor in the adjacent villages in the same comarca (roughly equivalent to a county in a US state), the area is home to only around 30,000 people. But it is a surprisingly important hub of industrial activity. The giant German candy company Haribo has its Spanish subsidiary office and factory in the comarca and a number of locally incubated companies are significant players worldwide in their respective sectors.
Examples? INOXPA is a major provider of fluid-handling solutions for a range of industries and has factories in India and Moldova and customers all over the world; Castañer is a globally respected producer of high fashion footwear; Astech is a young company which has grown rapidly to become an internationally significant manufacturer of machinery for the food production sector.
At this week’s ICF event in Banyoles, our CEO Narcís Puigdemont was on hand to join a panel discussion with other local entrepreneurs, sharing his experience of rapid business growth and how ICF has facilitated it.
At Tecma, we think it’s important for successful companies to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation in the communities on which they depend for a talented workforce and high-quality infrastructure. We’re grateful
that ICF asked us to play our part in Banyoles this week!
