During a parliamentary commission on the review of the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF), Carmen Aguado, vice-president of the Canary Islands Audiovisual Cluster, and Cosme García, managing director of the Society for Economic Promotion of Gran Canaria, defended the need to strengthen tax incentives and specialised training to maintain the competitiveness of the audiovisual sector in the Canary Islands.
Aguado stressed that, although the Canary Islands are already an international benchmark for filming, there is a lack of specialised education and the "call effect" must be encouraged in order to attract local talent. He also stressed that for every euro invested in the sector, a nine-fold economic return is generated. For this reason, he called for an increase in tax deductions to 54% and proposed five key tax adjustments: maintaining the differential with the mainland, recovering previous conditions of the REF, raising the minimum threshold for post-production, and using the Canary Islands Investment Reserve (RIC) to consolidate the industry.
Cosme García, for his part, pointed out that the REF must contribute to improving the quality of employment beyond tourism and construction, and that the audiovisual sector is a sector with great potential in this regard. Both agreed that a clear strategy is needed to take advantage of the sector's capacity as an engine of economic diversification in the islands.
