MOST ATTRACTIVE SECTORS FOR INVESTMENT IN GRAN CANARIA

Gran Canaria has an ideal business environment for investment and entrepreneurship. In addition, it has its own economic and fiscal regime, and the investment incentives offered to companies and entrepreneurs.

It has excellent air and airport connections, an important regional market, the availability of qualified young talent and a competitive supply of space and services for the location of business activities.

These advantages, together with its climate, natural conditions and quality of life, make it an attractive location for the development of the following sectors.

Film and television production:

The key organisations in the audiovisual sector in Gran Canaria are the Gran Canaria Film Commission and the Cluster Audiovisual de Canarias.

In order to promote the audiovisual production sector in Gran Canaria, the Gran Canaria Film Commission has been created.

"The Gran Canaria Film Commission is a unit attached to the Gran Canaria Film Commission. Society for the Economic Promotion of Gran Canaria which offers institutional support and confidence to audiovisual productions in film, television and advertising.

They offer stable and personalised support at all stages of production:

• Free advice on locations and permits.
• Meeting with local producers and professionals.
• Contact with the rest of the public administrations of Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands.

Objectives of the Gran Canaria Film Commission:

• CONSOLIDATE Gran Canaria has become a benchmark in the audiovisual industry, both in the film production sector and in television and advertising.
• PROMOTEThe project aims to develop, develop, and provide excellent assistance to the audiovisual production industry in Gran Canaria.
• IMPULSE the audiovisual industry and to work with public administrations, industry and stakeholders for the development and growth towards a consolidated and sustainable audiovisual industry, which contributes to job creation and allows a diversification of the economy.

Functions of the Gran Canaria Film Commission: 

It is a public office that offers free information and advice to companies and professionals from the audiovisual sector who want to film in Gran Canaria.

In order to facilitate film, TV and advertising shoots, the Gran Canaria Film Commission offers the following services:

• Attracting national and international film shoots.

  The Gran Canaria Film Commission is present at the main international events and festivals to promote the island as a great natural film set and to present the range of opportunities that Gran Canaria offers to host national and international film, TV and advertising productions.

• Support in the search for locations.

  The Gran Canaria Film Commission offers you prior advice on the filming or photography locations that best suit your interests. They also put you in contact with professionals and companies specialising in locations.

In the section "Locations"You will find a list of images classified by categories that will make it easier for you to find the most suitable places and spaces for your next production. Gran Canaria, known as the "miniature continent", will surprise you with the variety of its landscape and natural resources.

Without having to travel far, you will find a cosmopolitan and modern city, a diversity of picturesque and colonial villages, beach areas, green landscapes, mountains and even several kinds of deserts on a single island.

• Professional and swift assistance to film shoots
  

  The Gran Canaria Film Commission offers information and advice on the functioning of the tax incentives that, thanks to the Special Tax Regime of the Canary Islands (REF), offer attractive tax advantages to film and TV productions, which in the case of the Canary Islands, reach 50 % - 45 % of tax deduction.

In addition, the GCFC offers information on all local production services and professionals, as well as suppliers of auxiliary industries that demand the most demanding productions.

The GCFC is also coordinating with local authorities and the various departments of the Canary Islands Government in order to speed up the processing of permits and make projects a reality more quickly.

If you need to deal with a matter related to Environment, Coasts, Culture, Public Works, etc.

• Dynamisation of the audiovisual production and service sector.
  

  The Gran Canaria Film Commission puts foreign production companies in contact with local production companies through its production guide.

For this purpose, we have a production guide, where you will find a list of local companies specialised in offering production services at all stages, as well as equipment rental to facilitate your next project in Gran Canaria.

• Innovation and technological development
  

  Since 2016 the Gran Canaria Film Commision shares working facilities with the Digital Content Hub "Pasarela".

Our intention is to promote the creation of a space where synergies arise between the audiovisual sector and companies specialising in the development of digital content, in order to increase the value chain of services to be offered to the most demanding film and TV productions, as well as to boost the animation, post-production and special effects sector.

• Specific training

  The Gran Canaria Film Commission is currently promoting a specific comprehensive training programme in collaboration with the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster, aimed at professionals in the sector who wish to update their knowledge and/or specialise in new trends.

• Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster:

In just a few years, the Canary Islands have become a relevant node for international audiovisual production, surprising in the process the small Canary Islands companies that have to adapt to a constantly evolving market.

The small size of Canarian audiovisual companies hinders strategic plans for growth and innovation.

The solution: the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster creates a horizontal network of collaboration and advises its members on how to keep up to date, equip themselves with innovative tools, internationalise and explore new sales channels for their products and services.

Companies associated with the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster:

1. They collectively equip themselves with the resources to compete and lead in a productive sector.
2. They make themselves visible and gain power vis-à-vis organisations and institutions.
3. They acquire a key competitive position that facilitates growth.
4. They pool resources and create synergies around common interests to access more and better tools for growth.
5. They allow you to keep track of the evolution of the sector through all member companies.

• Digital animation.

In recent years, Gran Canaria has become a pole of attraction for the animation industry.

Companies such as Anima, Fortiche, Birdland o KoyiThe island's tax incentives, currently among the most competitive in Europe, have attracted them for a number of reasons, but mainly because of the tax incentives.

And from here they produce series such as 'Cleo y Cuquín', 'Shark Academy', 'Pocoyó' and 'Arcane'. All of them have had a great impact, but specifically the latter, 'Arcane', which after its premiere on Netflix, has become the number one most watched series in more than thirty countries.

• Marine biotechnology and aquaculture

The Canary Islands sea is a pole of attraction for talent and future investors in R&D&I. And Bioasis Gran Canaria is the international launch pad that will place the Canary Islands at the forefront of the European blue economy.

Bioasis Gran Canaria:

With the aim of facilitating the expansion of blue biotechnology and aquaculture, the Platform of Excellence in Algal Biotechnology was created in June 2016, through a consortium between several institutions with activities related to the sector, later extended to aquaculture and marine biotechnology.

In the steering committee held in the third year of the platform's life, its new corporate identity was approved with a new brand: BIOASIS Gran Canaria - Platform for Blue Biotechnology and Aquaculture.

In addition to the strategic advantages of the archipelago (high biodiversity, optimal environmental/climatic conditions, strategic geographical location), one of the keys to the development of blue biotechnology and aquaculture in the islands is the existence of research centres and groups with established working synergies.

Particularly noteworthy:

• The Spanish Algae Bank (BEA), a centre attached to and managed by the Fundación Canaria Parque Científico Tecnológico (FCPCT) of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC).
• The University Institute of Sustainable Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (ECOAQUA-ULPGC).
• The Instituto Tecnológico de Canarias (ITC), a public R&D centre dependent on the Regional Ministry of Economy, Industry, Trade and Knowledge of the Government of the Canary Islands.

The creation of this joint R&D platform in the field of algae biotechnology and terrestrial aquaculture makes it possible to identify and promote projects of excellence and offer different technological services that meet the needs of start-ups and/or companies that want to diversify and develop new lines of research.

The BIOASIS Platform aims to provide access to services, equipment, technology and training at a lower cost in terms of time and investment.

The creation of a new industrial sector in the Canary Islands in the field of blue biotechnology and aquaculture requires specific experimental facilities to enable, on the one hand, the development and promotion of scientific and R&D&I activities and, on the other hand, the creation of companies and the attraction of business initiatives or consolidated companies to them.

For the development and implementation, on an experimental and industrial scale, of the terrestrial aquaculture activity of marine species, both animal and algae, a relevant deployment of infrastructures and basic equipment is required, which can only be undertaken by coupling, focusing and centralising these areas of experimentation and industrialisation of marine cultures in selected suitable locations and, in this way, making this new and emerging business sector technically and economically feasible, as well as its sustainable development and implementation.

To achieve these objectives, BIOASIS Gran Canaria - Blue Biotechnology and Aquaculture Platform has launched a work programme with proposals to improve and resolve the regulatory framework affecting this industrial activity, as well as new sources of funding for its consolidation, which will help and encourage it.

On the one hand: technology transfer to private companies of the biotechnological developments generated and produced by R&D centres.

On the other hand: the optimisation of the basic and necessary logistical-scientific-technological support and back-up required by companies in the sector.

• Off-shore activities and services

One of the main growth markets for offshore in the Canary Islands continues to be ship repair and ship supply, a sector in which the ports of the islands are an international reference.

In the port of La Luz, a total of 110 companies work in this activity, half of them foreign.

Ship repair in Las Palmas is one of the main economic lines of the marine-maritime sector, which, specifically in the field of ship repair, represents between 1.2 and 2% of the total contribution of the sector, between 6 and 7% of the Gross Domestic Product of the autonomous community.

In addition, ship repair generates 5,000 permanent jobs and 10,000 indirect jobs, as ship supply accounts for 80% of the archipelago's exports.

• Remote working

The arrival of travellers in search of a paradisiacal place to work remotely has increased in the Canary Islands during 2020 and the beginning of 2021, a trend obviously marked by the impact of Covid-19 and new trends in teleworking.

At least 8,000 people are estimated to have arrived in the Canary Islands from countries such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom and, increasingly, the United States.

In fact, one only needs to look at the Nomad List - Best places to live for a Digital NomadThe Bible for teleworkers, which regularly places both Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the top ten.

On a single day in mid-April there were over 4,000 people registered as teleworking from the Canary Islands, which gives an idea of how many teleworkers may be developing projects from the Islands.

Consequently, the Canary Islands Government has launched the campaign 'The office with the best climate in the world' and has announced a 500,000 euro plan to attract some 30,000 professionals over a decade to develop projects lasting between one and three months.