Digital development in Spain boosts economic recovery

The slogan for this year's event - organised by the Spanish Association of Electronics, Information Technology, Telecommunications and Digital Content Companies (Spanish acronym: AMETIC) and the Telefónica Foundation - is 'Strategies for the Digital Single Market'.

The Spanish State Secretary began his speech by going back over the legislature now drawing to a close, which he described as "tough and difficult". However, he said that a new period of sustained growth and job creation is now starting. Spain is entering a virtuous circle of more competitiveness, more growth, more jobs, more revenue and lower taxes which, in turn, help drive even more growth, competitiveness and job creation. In this regard, he highlighted the important role to be played by the digital economy in the economic recovery and the strong impact that technologies have on productivity and job creation.

In his speech, Víctor Calvo-Sotelo said that the timeframe for the European and Spanish Digital Agendas concludes this year. Furthermore, the European Commission presented its Strategy for the Digital Single Market in May, meaning this is a good time to reflect on what has been achieved and what should form the foundations for the next Spanish digital strategy.

The Government of Spain drew up the Digital Agenda for Spain in 2013 with extensive support from experts, businesses and the public. At the present time, almost all the measures included in the agenda have been implemented and the majority have been concluded.

Furthermore, Spain has put itself at the cutting edge in Europe regarding the deployment of fibre-to-the-home networks. 61% of the population has access to speeds over 100 Mbps, while coverage at 30 Mbps stands at 65%. In turn, coverage by 4G mobile networks stands at 76% of the population and this figure will be increased when using the spectrum taken from the digital dividend. To continue this process, the procedure to tender the frequency bands in the 2.6 GHz band will be launched in the coming weeks.

Digital Single Market

The State Secretary stressed that, even though the figures are positive, there is still much work to be done and expressed the need to build a European Digital Single Market with common rules for all companies operating in that market capable of boosting investment and wealth creation while guaranteeing competitiveness and fair conditions for all.

Víctor Calvo-Sotelo believes that industrial digitalisation is necessary for building that Digital Single Market. "The Government of Spain is committed to transforming the industrial sector by incorporating digital technologies towards achieving industry 4.0", he said.

He also highlighted a number of initiatives, such as approval of the National Smart Cities Plan (with a provision of 180 million euros) and the Connected Schools Plan that, with a budget of 330 million euros, will enable over 16,500 education centres to be connected at speeds of 100 Mbps and will potentially benefit 6.5 million students. He then announced that this project will open spaces for teacher and student training in programming and ICT. The various objectives include the greater effort needed in terms of e-commerce and support for SMEs.