The Canary Islands Special Zone (ZEC) has received one of the annual awards given by the renowned British publishing group Financial Times (FT), as one of the best areas in the world to invest in the audiovisual sector. The consortium competed with 67 other nominees, from more than 5,000 special zones spread across the planet. The jury recognizes the ZEC with an honorable mention for its leadership in attracting investment in this industry, which has allowed the development of a thriving creative ecosystem at the local level.
The president of the ZEC, Pablo Hernández, is satisfied that “the good work done in the Canary Islands” is recognized to strengthen and scale a sector with a vision of the future such as the audiovisual sector. “For a long time, steps have been taken that are now bearing very good fruit in infrastructure, to provide technical support to filming; development of talent, certainty for investors, improving our legal certainty as foreseen in the draft General Budgets for 2023; and with tax incentives that work”.
Hernández points out that very large companies, such as Disney or Amazon, trust the Islands for their large productions. “This gives us international projection and generates synergies with other industries, such as technology, which we hope will continue to deepen so that they become a source of employment and wealth for the Canary Islands,” he adds.
Giants that produce in the Islands
The FT awards are structured into six categories and are among the most prestigious an economic zone can receive. The highest distinction fell this year, and eight consecutive, in Dubai, chosen as the Global Free Zone of the Year. Other areas of the United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Poland, China and Costa Rica are also in the Top 10.
The jury is made up of a specialized editorial team from fDi Intelligence magazine, a publication of the Financial Times group that awards these awards, and a panel of independent judges who assess, among other issues, the business growth of each area, its resilience and its harmony with the sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda.
Alex Irwin-Hunt, jury of the award and editor of fDi Intelligence, praised the ZEC’s strategy for focusing on the audiovisual sector, managing to “develop an ecosystem that has welcomed companies such as Buendía Estudios and Fortiche, the animation studio behind the popular Netflix series ‘Arcane’”.
The production company Buendía Estudios, owned by Atresmedia and Telefónica, and the Franco-Canarian studio Fortiche are two leading companies installed in the ZEC that, like many others, work at the highest international level from the Canary Islands with industry giants such as Disney, Amazon, Apple and Sony.
digital leadership
The ZEC is advancing rapidly despite the uncertainty of the troubled times we live in. In 2021, employment set a record by growing 15.5%, with 1,139 new contracts, and reaching a total of 8,984 jobs in the 703 entities attached to the consortium. In the first half of this year the trend has continued and 832 jobs and 44 new companies were added.
This effervescence is even more evident in the film and animation sector. The coordinated drive of the Canary Islands Film Commission, the Government of the Canary Islands, the councils, Proexca, the Canary Institute for Cultural Development, and other institutions and public bodies such as the ZEC has made it possible for the Islands to become a thriving audiovisual production hub , which stands out at a national and European level.
Employment in this sector soared 68% in the last four years, going from 1,640 registered workers in 2018 to the current 2,755, according to data from the Canary Institute of Statistics (Istac). In the midst of the digital age, the sector is expected to reach 200 million euros of investment this year and continue to gain scale and recognition to compete in international markets.
Outstanding Strategy
The Financial Times already recognized the Canary Islands this year by placing the Autonomous Community in the top 10 in Europe for its investment attraction strategy. The ‘European Regions of the Future’ ranking places the Islands in the elite among more than 350 destinations and equates them with the regions of Brabant, Northern Ireland, Lower Austria, the cities of Zurich, Manchester or the Basque Country.
The same document confirms that the Canary Islands are the fourth region in Europe with the best connectivity. Ahead are only Amsterdam, Zurich and Rotterdam. The Archipelago appears as the best connected region in Spain as it operates all year round, with a high volume of traffic. In this way, it is shown that air connectivity, which is a factor traditionally associated with tourism, at the same time, has a direct impact as an attractiveness for investment.
