In conjunction with salmon trade group SalmonChile and sector players, Corfo – the Chilean government’s productive investment agency – has launched the Integrated Territorial Program (PTI per its initials in Spanish) to encourage local economic development in Chile’s southern region of Aysén.
The three-year initiative seeks to promote entrepreneurship and create new local businesses, increase sales of existing local suppliers, expand related infrastructure, and strengthen human capital. The project has the goal of boosting investment and technological advances to create more jobs while fostering growth and development for the residents of the area. Specific goals include growing sales of local suppliers to salmon farms by 10 percent and increasing the number of contracts signed with enterprises in Aysén by 20 percent.
“With this PTI we are helping the inhabitants of this region to benefit from more and better jobs and opportunities in the salmon industry. For the fattening process in Aysén, some USD 500 million [EUR 454 million] are invested annually in services that are mainly contracted in another region, because there is no consolidated, sophisticated offer from local suppliers,” Corfo Executive Vice President Pablo Terrazas said in a press release. “Corfo's role and coordination with private companies are key to contributing towards greater territorial equity in our country.”
Fishing and aquaculture represent 22.6 percent of the regional GDP, consolidating Aysén as Chile’s main area in which the salmon fattening stage is developed, and where the industry allocates the greatest amount of resources. However, process expansion is limited by logistics and production costs, and so Corfo has deemed it necessary to strengthen local suppliers, which will thereby increase industry competitiveness while contributing to local development.
“The PTI is focused on increasing competitiveness of local entrepreneurs and suppliers, and it has [different] phases of training, dissemination, and sophistication. It is a concrete instrument to improve competitiveness and have many more local suppliers, with that much more value generated in the Aysén region,” SalmonChile President Arturo Clement noted.
The program will look to strengthen diversification and sophistication in the local salmon sector, promoting the articulation and coordination of public and private actors. It will focus on the supplier industry’s entire value-chain, including facilities, equipment, supplies, services and transportation. It seeks the development of new products and services, raising service provision standards to move towards a regional industry platform, transfer of good aquaculture practices, and participation in aquaculture fairs and sustainability seminars for suppliers and producers. All is to be coordinated by a manager under an established governance model.
Chile is the second-largest producer of salmon in the world, following Norway, and salmon exports are the second-largest contributor to the economy, following mining.
Photo courtesy of SalmonChile
