Doubts about the project to install a Chinese electric car factory in Ferrol (A Coruña), where one of the largest arsenals of the Spanish Navy is also based, have dissipated in 48 hours. The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, informed the President of the Xunta de Galicia, Alfonso Rueda, on Tuesday that her department will issue a new report approving the plan, according to sources from the Galician Government. The uncertainty arose after it was revealed that the Army and the CNI considered that the project could be a cover for some Chinese espionage operation on military facilities.
Robles’ announcement to the Galician president, from the PP, thus ends the concern raised by the military alerts, which considered suspicious the choice by the company SAIC Motor of the outer port of Ferrol, barely five kilometers in a straight line from the Navy arsenal and the Navantia military shipyard. Following the release of those reports and the concern they caused in the Xunta and the Government’s minority partner, Sumar, the Executive hurried on Monday to clarify that it continues to support the project, pending approval by the Council of Ministers. Robles has confirmed to Rueda that her department will not oppose it, “without prejudice to the operational conditions that may be necessary,” according to Xunta sources.
SAIC Motor, the largest Chinese electric car manufacturer, chose the outer port of the Galician city to locate the factory with which it intends to enter the European market through the former British brand MG, now under its ownership. The plan foresees an investment of 200 million euros and the creation of a thousand jobs in an area that never recovered from the brutal deindustrialization it suffered 40 years ago with the naval reconversion.
The project had been promoted by both the central government and the Galician government, controlled by the PP. Pedro Sánchez showed interest in it during his last trip to China in April. Rueda also traveled expressly to the Asian country to make arrangements in favor of Ferrol as the investment destination, to which, according to the Xunta, other places in Spain also aspired. Both administrations have showcased their collaboration on this matter, despite the different political colors of their governments.
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The Galician Executive has declared it a “strategic industrial project.” Last July, company executives already moved to Galicia, were received by the regional president, and conducted a first landing test of 700 vehicles at the Ferrol port. The plant plans to assemble 120,000 cars a year with parts shipped from China. It also includes the development of auxiliary industry and a logistics center in the same region, “especially in need of this type of opportunity,” as Rueda emphasized last Monday, expressing his displeasure over the news about the concern raised in the Army and intelligence services.
PP and Sumar leaders have suggested that these alerts could be due to other reasons. The mayor of Ferrol, the popular José Manuel Rey Varela, president of the Senate Defense Commission, referred to “business interests,” while Enrique Santiago, deputy spokesperson of Sumar in Congress, attributed it to NATO as part of the economic and military struggle between the United States and China.