The sugar project in Mérida writes another chapter, now with branches in France. The Al Khaleej Sugar group, from the United Arab Emirates, which in 2017 presented its plan to build a factory for the production of sugar and related products in the capital of Extremadura, has registered an application in Rouen, the capital of French Normandy, for another similiar project. A candidacy that, according to the agrodigital.com website. could subtract weight from the project in Extremadura, on which it was announced that construction works would begin this year. However, from the business promoter of the United Arab Emirates and from the Junta de Extremadura, a double message is sent: that the Mérida project continues and that, in the event that the Rouen project is approved by the French authorities, it will not be incompatible two sugar factories in the Iberian Peninsula (the Extremaduran is intended for Spain and Portugal) and another in France.
«The Mérida project continues. Lively. The only thing pending is the publication of documentation by the Government, but Jamal’s intention (Majid Al-Ghurair, head of the Ibérica Sugar Company, a company created in Spain to develop the sugar factory) is for the industry in Mérida to continue,” he explained. to TODAY Ahmad Al Khatib, spokesperson for the business group of the United Arab Emirates in our country. He adds that the initiative presented in France, in any case, is not incompatible with the one presented in the Peninsula, planned to be installed in the Expacio Mérida industrial estate. When it was announced that this land was chosen, there was another possible candidacy, in the United Kingdom, which finally rejected the Arab group for the benefit of Extremadura.
The Junta de Extremadura has the same information that Al Khatib transfers to TODAY. «The publication of a resolution of the Ministry of Industry on the industrial projects that benefit from the reindustrialization fund is pending. The Mérida project continues”, official sources from the Extremaduran Executive explained to this newspaper. The project has a positive Environmental Impact Statement (DIA) that expires this year, in addition to other administrative authorizations.
It must be remembered that as published TODAY last year, the sugar project has attended a call for aid from a new line of financing from the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. Through the Productive Investment Fund, it was taken for granted that the financing problems would be overcome to start up an industry with huge numbers: the plant has an investment of 436 million euros and plans to create 200 direct jobs plus a high number of indirect ones and the recovery of an abandoned crop in Extremadura such as beet.
Vara, Maroto and Al-Ghurair signed an agreement for the sugar company in July of last year in Mérida. /
Last summer, with the presence in the Extremaduran capital of Minister Reyes Maroto, he went even further by assuring that the works would begin throughout this year, although the first quarter has passed and there is no concrete news about that objective. .
From the Mérida City Council the official response is that there is no new news and that the latest is precisely that announcement from last summer.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.