Source: Nació

During the event an individual meeting was held with the ICF specialists to analyse the financing of Leather Cluster Barcelona and IDR projects

On Wednesday 5 February, Leather Cluster Barcelona took part in the business meeting organised by the Catalan Finance Institute (ICF).

The ICF has been Catalonia’s public promotional bank for 40 years, a period during which it has financed more than 37,000 clients for an amount of more than 16 billion euros.

Its main mission is to promote the financing of companies and organisations in order to contribute to the growth, innovation and sustainability of the Catalan economy. The ICF acts as a complement to the private sector, offering a wide range of financing solutions centred on loans, guarantees and venture capital investment.

The event took place at the Espai Plana de l’Om of the Manresa Auditorium and the cluster was represented by its president, Bernat Vilarrubias.

The event served as a forum for dialogue on the future challenges of the business fabric and on strategic issues for the economy and for companies.

The session was introduced by the chief executive of the ICF, Vanessa Servera, who gave a presentation on public banking and financing solutions.

After an interesting round table, the meeting was closed by the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Alícia Romero, and the mayor of Manresa, Marc Aloy.

At the end of the business meeting, individual financial advisory sessions were arranged for the entrepreneurs with technical staff from the Catalan Finance Institute.

In this regard, Bernat Vilarrubias held an advisory meeting with the ICF analysts in order to examine the possible financing of projects of Leather Cluster Barcelona and of Igualadina de Depuració i Recuperació S.L. (IDR).

With their firm commitment on the path towards Zero Waste, the cluster and IDR are driving highly significant projects with the aim of achieving the maximum valorisation of organic waste-resources and of giving treated water a second life. Both are large-scale projects requiring substantial investment.

On the one hand, Leather Cluster Barcelona is pursuing excellence in valorisation in order to transform the by-products and organic resources arising from the tanning process in Catalonia, through technology and innovation, into products with high added value, such as oils for various applications, functional proteins for food or amino acids as biostimulants for organic agriculture.

On the other, IDR and Leather Cluster Barcelona are developing an ambitious project to give treated water a second life with the construction of a Water Reclamation Station (ERA), which consists of treating the effluent from the IDR treatment plant (the already treated water leaving the plant) in order to obtain a flow of ultrafiltered water and also reverse-osmosis water (practically pure water), plus another of salt water, all reusable by the tanning industry or for other uses.

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