8 April 2016
Mari Jose Aranguren, director general of Orkestra and Imanol Pradales, Counsellor for Economic and Territorial Development of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia, have today presented the project “County strategy for the construction of a competitive and territorially balanced Bizkaia”.
Both institutions will work alongside local development agents in this territory, in order to create an appropriate strategy that will lead to an increase in Bizkaia’s competitiveness whilst taking into account its diversity.
The project aims to cover aspects related to innovation, investment, industrial land, connectivity and communication infrastructures, internationalization and entrepreneurship.
In order to address the diversity of the entire Vizcayan territory, the project will work on county strategy by dividing the province into four zones which present common challenges in terms of their competitive performance and which will be comprised as follows:
- Northern zone: Txorierri, Mungialdea, Right Bank and Uribekosta
- Eastern zone: Busturia, Lea-Artibai and Durangaldea
- Southern zone: Nerbioi-Ibaizabal and Arratia
- Eastern zone: Ezkerraldea, Meatzaldea and Enkarterri
In each of these zones there will be a process of collaborative work between Orkestra, the department of Economic and Territorial Development and its development agents to establish a permanent channel of communication, define the challenges within the zone and form a regional work team that will transform those challenges into proposals, projects and programmes of specific action.
Orkestra’s role, as an agent that promotes competitiveness from a perspective of transformative research, will be to analyse and to work alongside these institutions, providing tools in order that Bizkaia might specialise its productive fabric and be a more cohesive territory.
As Imanol Pradales said during today’s presentation, the project is the result of the conclusions arising from the competitive diagnosis initially undertaken by Orkestra for the Provincial Council of Bizkaia. The work reflects the reality of a heterogeneous, diverse and complex territory that requires a specific programme of promotion of county competitiveness.
Meanwhile Mari Jose Aranguren took advantage of the presentation to underline the role and commitment of Orkestra, ever since its birth ten years ago, in improving the competitiveness of the Basque Country as a whole. She also pointed out that for Orkestra “it is an honour to be able to work with the Provincial Council of Bizkaia in this project which is in line with Orkestra’s philosophy of involving the diverse agents of the territory so as to construct a strategy that responds to the needs and realities of so heterogeneous a territory as ours”.
