Malaga at a Glance
Mayor Francisco de la Torre Prados (Partido Popular) won a simple majority on May 26 in the municipal elections and following negotiations with the Ciudadanos party, he was sworn-in as Malaga Mayor for the 5th time on June 15.
The Malaga Port will reduce stipulations for a public tender to build 3 office buildings & a parking garage. It is a priority project not only for the Port but for the City. Until now, there were 2 aspects that hindered private sector interest: reduced buildable square meters and the obligation to build 2 buildings: the Civil Guard barracks and Customs House. They plan to solicit before the end of the year.
Startup Europe Smart Agrifood Summit gathered 1,800 professionals from 27 countries in its 2nd edition, on June 20- 21 in Malaga. International experts, innovators, and investors shared their ideas on Industry 4.0, Internet of Things, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), latest technologies, specialized tools, products and services related to the improvement of the agri-food value chain. It is one of the main European meetings focused on the digital and technological transformation of the agri-food sector and its auxiliary industry.
Manuel Alcantara, one of the great poets and columnists of his time passed away this spring at the age of 91. He was born in Malaga and published his first books in the 60s: Way of Silence, Plaza Mayor and El Embarcadero, which was a finalist for the National Prize. After winning the Spanish National Poetry Prize for his work “City,” he became a star columnist. For the last 30 years, he has been writing for Diario Sur in Malaga.
The Regional Andalucian Minister of Economy, Knowledge, Business and University, Rogelio Velasco, announced that Malaga will be a pilot for the implementation of 5G technology, with two nodes, one in Calle Larios and another in the Technology Park of Andalusia.
Antonio Banderas, Malaga born actor, director and producer, has chosen the cast for the musical 'A Chorus Line', which will open his new Malaga theatre (Teatro del Soho CaixaBank) on October 17.
Recognitions
The Malaga Museum was nominated as one of the best museums opened in Europe during the last two years, according to the European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) organized by the European Museum Forum (EMF). The Malaga art gallery reached the final stage of the EMYA awards. It competed with a total of 39 centers in 17 different countries.
Visitors
We had business people visit us from Argentina, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK & the USA during the second quarter of 2019. We had a special visit from engineering students from Texas Tech University.
By the Numbers
The companies at the Andalucian Technological Park (PTA) exceed for the first time 2,000 million euros of combined revenue in 2018, which is 7% more than in 2017. The PTA has also increased the number of workers by 6 % compared to 2018, with 19,873, which is 1,139 more than in the previous year. 6,700 (34%), work at foreign companies. The total number of companies and institutions increased by 1.85 %, with 646 in this 2019 compared to 634 last year.
The Malaga Port moved 1.5 million tons during the first half of 2019, which represented a 10.8% increase compared to the same period in 2018. Between January and June 2019, the port of Malaga moved a total of 40,028 units, increasing by 20.1 %. The Malaga-Melilla ferry is the one that offers the most outstanding data, with an increase of 29.3 %. As for the cruise passengers, the figure has dropped slightly 4.5 %. Also, solid bulk and grains has decreased by 45.3 % compared to last year, but it has been increasing by as much as 100% during the last few years.
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Company News
Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), a Kingdom of Bahrain sovereign fund, acquired a significant minority interest in the Malaga based company Grupo Premo. Premo is a leading manufacturer of passive electromagnetic components for industries such as automotive, telecommunications and electronics among others. They seek to capitalize on their leading position in strategic market segments: as a supplier of inductive components for electric vehicles (EV / HEV), as well as movement tracking technology for other growing markets, such as virtual reality or augmented reality (AR / VR). Premo arrived to Malaga in 1962 and has manufacturing facilities in China, Vietnam and Morocco, as well as its 1,400 employees.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) set up offices in the Andalusian Technological Park and 'The Green Ray', to advise high potential companies. They will provide consulting services in different sectors including Data Analytics.
Datlight SL, a newly created high-tech Malaga company dedicated to the development of LIFI (Light Fidelity) / VLC (Visual Light Communications) technology has created the first conference room in Spain where the Internet can be accessed through light. The room is located in the European Business and Innovation Center of Malaga, BIC Euronova at the Andalusia Technological Park. It allows the transmission of data at a speed 100 times faster than the average speed of WiFi. The transmission takes place between a specific LED lamp developed by the 'partner' Lucibel and any device - 'smartphone', laptop, iPad, tablet, IoT, etc. - currently through a receiver (dongle).
Bigfoot Gaming, a mobile video game design studio from Argentina, recently opened their first Europea office in Malaga.
Amazon began to install its logistics center on land rented from the Railway Infrastructure Manager (Adif). The land is located in the Los Prados area of Malaga and has more than 13,000 square meters.
A Big Data and Artificial Intelligence cluster was recently created by the Andalusian Technological Park and the University of Malaga (UMA) with the aim to promote business development, research and education in these disruptive technologies. Initiatives include the UMA’s Masters in Advanced Analytics on Big Data, which is now in its fifth edition, summer courses in Artificial Intelligence, the UMA Chair in AI, Big Data and Machine Learning and the UMA Big Data Analytics Competence Center. Participating companies are Accenture, Aertec, Dekra, Ericsson, Goodjob Technology, HRCS, Indra, Ingenia, Neueda, Opplus, Oracle, PwC, Rindus, TDK, T2C and Tupl.
Promotional Trips
We presented our strategy & experience regarding economic development & discussed the importance of local government in terms of attracting investments at the V European Congress of Local Governments that took place April 8 to 9, 2019 in Krakow, Poland. The event brought together 2,000 national, regional and local government officials, research institutes and company representatives from all over Europe.
We participated in the annual congress of the European network EUniverCities which took place on May 7-9, 2019 in Aveiro, Portugal. It is a European network in which 12 medium-sized cities and their universities share experiences, strategies, projects, problem solving, and ideas and seek partners for future European projects. Malaga is the first and only Spanish member. The theme of this meeting was “How can universities be an active actor in the development of cultural activities in the city?” The next meeting would be in Malaga on November 19-21, 2019.
Upcoming Events
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