This Wednesday, March 24, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented the plan “Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe”, which intends to increase audiovisual production in the country by 30% in 2025.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, presented the plan, “Spain, Audiovisual Hub of Europe”, to boost the audiovisual sector, one of the axes of the Digital Spain 2025 agenda.
Attending the presentation, in person or virtually, were filmmakers such as Isabel Coixet; the president of the Video Game Association, Valeria Castro; the ambassador of the Spain Film Commission, James Costos; o Nicolás Matji, president of the Federation of Animation and Audiovisual Effects, Diboos.
The plan’s goals are to turn Spain into a leading country in audiovisual production in the digital age, a hub for international investment and talent, and strengthen its industry-services ecosystem to export and compete in international markets.
The plan includes a public investment of 1.603 billion euros between 2021 and 2025 and its goal is to increase the audiovisual production made in Spain by 30% at the end of that period.
During the plan’s presentation, Pedro Sánchez pointed out that “the audiovisual industry is key due to its weight in employment and the economy. But also because of its weight in our cultural identities and in our international projection”.
In addition, he explained that at a time when the Spanish audiovisual industry enjoys extraordinary worldwide recognition, it is necessary to “build a sustainable, richer and more fruitful ecosystem that enables the growth that the immense talent that our industry harbors deserves.”
“To make this new ecosystem a reality, we need the model to be sustainable. It has to be profitable, able to be self-sufficient and grow as a source of wealth. We are going to achieve the meeting between the expressive vocation of our creators and their conversion into competitive and profitable industrial products”, he added.
A BOOST TO THE AUDIOVISUAL INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN
The plan includes public investments and reforms to achieve a significant boost in the entire value chain for the audiovisual industry, based on the strengths that Spain possesses, such as a solvent audiovisual industry, well-trained and prestigious professionals, a globally recognized creative capacity and a comparative advantage in the growing global market for audiovisual production in Spanish.
The plan is based on an integral perspective of the audiovisual sector in all its formats (cinema, series, shorts, advertising, video games or animation) and an integrating vision that transcends the audiovisual to link with culture, tourism and the country’s own image.
The measures included in “Spain, the Audiovisual Hub of Europe” are articulated in four axes based on three priorities: turning Spain into a pole of attraction for audiovisual production, reducing administrative and regulatory costs; improve the competitiveness of companies through the application of new technologies that allow them to compete in a digitized market; and generate talent by reducing the gender gap.
FIRST AXIS: DIGITIZE, INTERNATIONALIZE AND ATTRACT INVESTMENT
The first axis of the plan, with a planned investment of 240 million euros, includes actions to digitize both audiovisual production and audience monitoring, to promote the implementation and improvement of platforms dedicated to Spanish audiovisual production and its distribution, that favor their international commercialization, especially that of those projects that generate collaborative ecosystems between SMEs.
In addition, a single point of information and a centralized point of contact will be created, the “Spain Audiovisual Hub Bureau”, which will provide information, assistance and support to potential investors in the sector, both to foreign companies wishing to invest in Spain, as well as to Spanish companies interested in the internationalization of their activity. In this area, an internationalization program for the audiovisual sector will be developed, developed by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and ICEX Spain Export and Investments, and a Program to attract filming and foreign investment.
