The Canary Islands, an ideal destination for foreign companies and entrepreneurs

Gran Canaria, with a key geostrategic position, receives 4.5 million tourists a year, which makes it the epicenter of the entire region. It has excellent communications infrastructures, which allow it to be well positioned in global transport and digital connectivity networks.

According to “Best in Gran Canaria”, it offers unique advantages to promote investment in the island and the development of business and commercial activities. Among these advantages are the tax benefits (including the best tax regime in Europe) and investment support as well as the quality of life in Gran Canaria and its cultural wealth that provides a connection with the rest of the world.

The main tax incentives are the ZEC (Canary Islands Special Zone), with a reduced rate of 4% in Corporate Tax; The RIC (Canarian Investment Reserve), allows the reduction of the tax burden up to 90% of the undistributed business profits generated in the Canary Islands; Deduction for investments in fixed assets: It supposes a reduction of the Corporation Tax equivalent to 25%; Deductions for investments in R&D and audiovisual productions and the Tax deduction for the production of tangible assets.

All these benefits have been collected in a guide for companies and entrepreneurs that has provided the information with the aim of encouraging the transfer to Gran Canaria. This regime has been proposed to diversify and attract investors. It also offers reduced taxation on business and consumer benefits. It also favors access to other incentives for business investment.

The offer of infrastructures and specific services for the development of business activities has allowed the island to be a true exotic destination to settle. Any company located in Gran Canaria may benefit from a combination of incentives, deductions and tax exemptions, depending on the type of business and the project cycle.

With the aim of achieving improvements in the level of technological maturation, they have created various laboratories to formulate an application test in three areas of specialization: conversational agents, artificial vision and recommendation systems.

According to Cámara Gran Canaria, which is a company that helps and supports entrepreneurs who want to start their business, historically and culturally they are closely linked to Latin America and have important commercial and institutional ties with West Africa. They have constituted an excellent commercial, logistics and service and technology transfer platform between continents, as they are integrated into the main international trade routes. This circumstance allows an investor to tackle strategic projects in West Africa and Latin America from the Canary Islands, with the legal certainty that comes with having a business base in Europe.

Maritime connections that have existed with Africa include destinations to: Angola, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Liberia, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone , South Africa and Togo.

The Canary Archipelago has turned out to be an optimal territory for the establishment and development of any activity related to the information and communications technology sector, as shown by its extensive satellite coverage (around 50 satellites provide service in the Canary Islands). ) and its interconnection through submarine fiber optic cabling.

The Canarian population is relatively younger than the national average, with high qualifications and relatively more competitive labor costs than in the rest of the Spanish territory. Low staff turnover also allows for higher levels of loyalty to companies, which is not the case elsewhere in the European Union. In addition, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the average labor cost per worker in the Canary Islands during the third quarter of 2011 amounted to €2,077.73/month compared to the average €2,456.91/month for the rest of the Spanish territory , placing the Canary Islands below the national average.

The Canary Islands have two public universities, located on the two capital islands: the University of La Laguna, in Tenerife, and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in Gran Canaria. Both centers have recorded a total of 50,262 students enrolled in 2011, of which more than half are studying scientific-technical studies. Nearly 5,000 students a year complete their studies at these university centers.