Spain wants to rely on EU recovery plans to increase its production capacity for electronic components. The Spanish government plans to inject 12.25 billion euros into the sector by 2027.
Spain is entering the dance to become a major European player in the semiconductor industry, with the country’s government having approved a plan to invest 12.25 billion euros in this sector by 2027.
To finance the latter, Madrid did not hesitate to use the recovery plans deployed by the European Union to overcome the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. “We want Spain to play a relevant role in this technological field, the role it deserves, and European funds offer an extraordinary opportunity”said the Spanish Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, in remarks reported by Reuters.
Most of this envelope, ie 9.3 billion euros, will be dedicated to the construction of factories to increase the country’s production capacities. The remaining money will be allocated in particular to the design of chips (1.3 billion), R&D (1.1 billion) and the creation of a fund of 200 million euros aimed at financing promising start-ups. , while the global semiconductor market is expected to double to $1 trillion by 2030.
14 billion euros put on the table by Germany
With this investment plan, Spain will take part in Europe’s war effort to reduce its dependence on Asia, which alone concentrates 80% of the world’s production of electronic chips. In this sense, Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, presented at the beginning of February the Chips Act, a 42 billion euro plan aimed at increasing the EU’s share in the world production of semiconductors to 20% by by 2030, compared to less than 10% today. 30 years ago, Europe produced 40% of electronic chips worldwide.
Among the European countries most active in reviving the semiconductor industry on the Old Continent, Germany is already attracting giants in the sector, such as Intel. Indeed, the American founder has decided to build a mega-factory of electronic components in our neighbors across the Rhine as part of an investment of 17 billion euros. To attract other heavyweights, such as the Taiwanese group TSMC and the South Korean Samsung, the German government is going to allocate an envelope of 14 billion euros in order to “developing our own strategy to secure raw materials”according to the Minister of the Economy, Robert Habeck.
But the other European countries also have a card to play, Intel having announced its intention to invest up to 80 billion euros in the European Union over the next decade. In this context, Spain hopes to capture part of the investments of the American group.