Press room

The King and Queen, accompanied by the Housing Minister, María Antonia Trujillo, were received by the Basque Prime Minister, Juan José Ibarretxe; the President of the Basque Parliamente Juan María Atutxa; the Representative of the Central Government, Paulino Luesma; the Leader of the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa, Joxe Juan González de Txabarri; the Basque Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Ana Aguirre; the Mayor of Mondragón, Ignacio Lakunza and the President of the MCC’s General Council, Jesús Catania.

After signing the Corporation’s Gold Book, the King and Queen saw a video about the MCC and conversed about how it operates and the different activities it carries out in the financial, industrial and distribution areas, as well as in the educational and training fields. They were very impressed by the drive and development of the co-operative movement linked to the MCC.

The King and Queen then presided over the ceremony of the placing of the first stone at the Garaia Innovation Park, which the King referred to as a “fantastic project”. Beforehand, Jesús Catania and José Ignacio Gárate, President of Garaia, thanked their Highnesses for coming and highlighted the commitment to innovation that the Garaia Park represents “as the best way of safeguarding jobs and generating more with greater added value and meeting the challenge of competitiveness in an increasingly more globalised market”.

Garaia is a non-profit making project, a result of the collaboration between the Government and the private sector. Located in a dynamic industrial environment, it is being promoted by the Mondragón Corporación Cooperativa (MCC), the Basque Government through Sprilur, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the Town Council of Mondragón. It has a share capital of 20 million euros and will account for an estimated investment of 46.5 million euros, of which 29 will be used to acquire and urbanise the land and 17.5 million to erect the buildings.

The aim is to create an area of excellence to help promote long-term research, promoting the introduction of new technologies applicable to businesses, thereby increasing their competitiveness and helping to create highly skilled jobs. It will promote innovation by putting in contact in just one area the suppliers of scientific knowledge (universities and technology centres) with those demanding innovation (companies’ R&D units), facilitating interaction and the flow of knowledge between all those taking part in the innovation process. In 12 years time, when it is in full operation, it plans to have more than 2,000 researchers.

When they visited the new Fagor facilities, the Fagor CEO, Pablo Mongelos stressed during his speech that the new plant "will be the demonstration of this company’s spirit, perseverance and that we do things wel. It will serve to consolidate our leadership in the Spanish market and increase our presence abroad". The King and Queen then opened the facilities which, after the extension work, occupy a surface area of 70,000 m2 (20,000 more than before) with the capacity to manufacture 2.7 million domestic appliances a year: 800,000 washing machines, 750,000 hobs, 654,000 ovens and 520,000 dishwashers. A total of 68.5 million euros has been invested in the facilities.

One of the most important projects was the extension and updating of the dishwasher plant, which required an investment of 17 million euros, increasing the plant from 4,750 m2 to 11,195 m2. It now has four assembly lines and the capacity to produce 110 appliances an hour, that is say, 520,000 dishwashers a year compared to 300,000 before.

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