The connection betwen nautical companies is the recipe for overcoming the COVID crisis

Under the title 'The marine industry, a blue vector for the global competitiveness of the Balearic Islands', the technical director of the Foundation Impulsa Baleares and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Antoni Riera has offered a detailed report of the marine industry in the archipelago.

The conference took place during the first of three days of the Balearic Yacht Show, the first virtual boat show in the Balearics, which began today and will end this Friday, organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca and the Balearic Nautic Marine.

Riera said that before the arrival of the covid-19 pandemic, Balearic sailing was in an "exciting" moment and said that the specific weight of the marine industry in the archipelago was "higher than in the rest of Europe. "The Balearics have done very well in the last ten years," he said.

"Before covid-19, the Balearic Islands had 1,742 nautical companies, some of them with a great export capacity for both yachts and sails," said Riera in his telematic conference. "This business volume accounted for 14.7% of the Balearic industry and employed 7,066 people," he said.

Before the arrival of the covid-19, Riera has recalled that the Balearic nautical company had gone from giving work to 4,750 people to employing 7,066 in over ten years. "Our nautical company had been adding many entrepreneurs and a large number of regional sectors," he has insisted.

Now, in times of pandemic, Antoni Riera recommends "linkage and connectivity" between companies in the sector to refloat business. "We must achieve a close connection between the actors of the marine industry," he said. "We must not forget either that tourism pivots around the sea", he has stressed.

The professor of the UIB has admitted that the coronavirus pandemic has "damaged" the nautical sector. "It has destroyed business fabric and has destroyed jobs, certainly, but I think we are able to, in 2021, turn that around with a response based on the connection between companies", he has reiterated.

"A dynamic sector such as the nautical one, which had grown 37% in the last 10 years, must have the capacity to react". "To move forward, it is necessary to put the blue ahead, keep the sea in good health and activate levers," said the professor.

Addressing the public administrations, Riera has requested that the competent bodies consider the nautical companies a dynamic and changing sector and that, if possible, they make policies "as a kind of tailor-made suit" for each case, due to the diversity of modalities that includes the branch.