The President of the Basque Country and the three Chief Executives sign an agreement to stimulate public investment over the next four years
The Government and Councils will assign close to 13 billion Euros to boost the economy and generate employment
The investments will have an impact of 20,000 jobs, 14,000 of them direct
The Basque Government and the Alava, Bizkaia and Guipuzkoa Councils will allocate close to 13 billion euros to revitalize economic activity, create employment and improve productivity. The President of the Basque Country, Juan José Ibarretxe, and the Chief Executives of Alava, Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, Xabier Agirre, José Luis Bilbao and Markel Olano, respectively, have signed an Agreement at the Palace of Ajuria Enea which seeks to encourage public investment over the next four years.
The President of the Basque Country and the three Chief Executives after signing the agreement.JB
The Agreement intends to activate measures aimed at reducing the consequences of a negative economic cycle at an international level and maintain the rhythms of activity and economic growth.
After signing, the President and Chief Executive appeared at a press conference to explain the contents of the Agreement.
The President said the we are before this country's "leadership initiative" from a social and economic view and has described this Agreement as being "flexible" in the number of new projects, "open" to the incorporation of other institutions, in particular town halls, and "realistic" since it deals with defined and specific projects.
"To save when things go well is essential so that spending may be possible in lean periods, and this is what the institutions of this country are doing.
We are well managed institutions, when things went well, and today we can confront the economic difficulties just as families do, which is to say, by drawing out all the savings or even turning to indebtedness to boost the country when things aren't going so well", stressed the President.
A Horizon of Stability and Security
During another point in his speech, the President underlined that Basque institutions want to transfer the "guarantee of stability" to citizens and "confidence" to the economic sectors and "also the world" with this initiative. "We are a responsible country. We want to establish a horizon of stability and security for the Basque economy, which today, like all economies, is open to the world", he said.
The Agreement signed today envisages a total of 12.8056 billion Euros of investments for the next four years, of which 5.867 billion Euros correspond to the Basque Government and 6.938 billion to the Councils and will have an employment impact of 20,000 jobs, 14,000 of them direct.
