Some twenty Catalan clusters, among them Leather Cluster Barcelona, travelled to China this October to learn about the country’s innovation ecosystem, forge alliances and seek international collaboration opportunities. This was the tenth edition of the Strategic Cluster Week, an initiative organised by ACCIÓ —the business competitiveness agency of the Ministry of Business and Labour— as part of the Catalonia Clusters programme.

Jordi Vidal, executive director of Leather Cluster Barcelona, took part in this mission to China, together with members of the Edutech, Innovi and Àmbit clusters, the Tech Tourism Cluster, the Cluster Digital, Femac, the Waste Cluster, the Packaging Cluster, Foodservice, the Catalan Water Partnership, Kids Cluster, MAV, CEEC, Indescat, Catalonia.Health, the Audiovisual Cluster, CSIM and CICAT.

The trip to the Asian country, led by Madrona Marcet, director of the ACCIÓ Catalonia Trade & Investment office in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and by Pol Arquimbau, Investment Promotion Project Manager, with the support of the local teams in each city, was accompanied by Encarni Avilés and Gemma Compte, heads of capacity building at the Clusters Unit of ACCIÓ’s Catalonia Clusters programme in Barcelona.

The cluster representatives visited Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai. During the mission, they met with Chinese companies such as the technology multinational OPPO, Shenzhen InnoX (a technology incubator), Tencent (one of the world’s largest technology companies and the creator of WeChat) and the e-commerce company Baozun. They also visited the facilities of Hutchison Ports HIT, one of the world’s leading port terminal operators, and of the Catalan company Ficosa, which specialises in automotive components and has been present in China since the 1990s.

In addition, they took part in specialised training and awareness sessions on the Chinese economy and consumption model. These sessions were led by specialists such as Natixis’s chief economist for Asia-Pacific and senior researcher at the think tank BRUEGEL, Alicia García Herrero, and Coral Puig, professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The Catalan representatives also received training on Chinese cluster policy, with a session given by the director of the Institute of Land and Regional Economy Development at East China Normal University, Professor Teng Tangwei.

As for Leather Cluster Barcelona’s individual agenda, Jordi Vidal travelled to the province of Henan to visit the production plant of the multinational Henan-Prosper. The Chinese business group, to which the cluster member company Colomer 1792 belongs, is one of the world’s giants in the leather sector.

Guided by the Chinese company’s general manager, Michael Lyu, and accompanied by his team, the executive director of Leather Cluster Barcelona had the opportunity to learn about the latest technologies applied to environmental improvement in the leather sector. Likewise, with Aurora Min, head of communication and marketing, and her team, they jointly explored avenues of collaboration to address the challenges and opportunities in communication and marketing for raising the leather sector’s profile.

This 2024 edition is the tenth edition of the Strategic Cluster Week, an initiative that each year takes Catalan clusters to different countries around the world so that they can learn about other innovation ecosystems that may serve as inspiration and with which they can share knowledge and experience. Among others, Catalan clusters have previously travelled to Boston, Silicon Valley, New York, South Korea, Singapore and Japan.

In Catalonia, cluster policy is articulated through the Catalonia Clusters programme, which the Generalitat has been promoting through ACCIÓ for more than 30 years. At present, 27 Catalan clusters form part of the programme and bring together 3,000 companies and players from their environment, with a combined turnover of more than 80 billion euros.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving forward the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector and its value chain within the framework of Shared Value policies. The cluster is an accredited body within the Catalonia Clusters programme and has the support of Acció.