Spain Gijon comes to terms with an ever changing world 30/03 20:18 CET

There is a spot on the Atlantic coast of Spain which marks a crossroads between the past and the future. Founded by the Celts in the fifth century BC and conquered for the Senate in Rome by Sexto Apuleio, the Asturian city of Gijon flourished thanks to its talent for commerce and industry.

But the coal mines of Mieres and Langreo, the coastal shipyards, and the huge steel plants have all, one by one, made way for a new ventures, bringing with them a new social and economic structure.

For years Gijon has been the battle-ground of radical change. Its traditional heavy-industry, in the middle of the town, reached a point where it could grow no more, and began to decline. So the town had to re-invent itself, targetting tourism, education and services, to avert crisis.

Eduardo Garcia is a journalist for La Nueva Espana, “One talks about industrial change that has taken 25-years. At the beginning of the 70’s the Asturies relied on heavy industry and that led to a crisis and the crisis is not yet over, these changes were difficult they were hard to accept, its hard for people to accept changes of that magnitude.

For much of the population, the 80s and 90s were hard times. In just a few years, 26-thousand jobs disappeared, and the social tensions that came with the economic downturn led to an eruption of violence. (This history inspired the movie by Fernando Leon, Los lunes al sol, with Javier Bardem, Oscar candidate).

Eduardo Garcia, “How was it resolved, by early retirements, which were necessary for social peace but a waste of talent and energy.That is one radical solution: a massive programme of early retirement, implemented by the area’s main employers – the shipyards, mines and steelworks.

The Arcelor plant here in Gijon and its sister-works in Avilès have lost 12-thousand jobs over just a few years. (from 19.000 to 7.000). But in that time, production has gone up by 25 per cent (from 4 millions of tons per year, to more than 5 per year).

The deputy Mayor for economic promotion José Maria Perez Lopez, says economic depression is a powerful force for change. “The town was needed change, and the crisis had been building that produced the environment to bring about the change.

If this crisis hadn’t happened, the process would have been slowed down . For example, you cannot revamp a city centre if the area is full of functioning industry. When the old industry disappears as happened here, you get social problems as a result, then you have to create new jobs, you also have to make good use of the space and improve individuals quality of life.” The transformation of the land in and around Gijon is typified in the town’s historic port.

The Musèl, as it is known, is Spain’s fourth most important port overall, but the country’s number one in terms of special goods, like coke and ore for the steel industry. Gijon port hosts a coke plant for power production and is undergoing a huge changes it is expected to double its capacity once a new dock has been constructed.

Its an ambitious project a structure made of huge concrete blocks, 52 meters high and 32 meters wide. Technically its a first and made possible with the help of the EU, which invested 800,000 million euros in the project. This is the largest investment in the commercial history of the Asturias. The EU has also backed educational improvements in the area by linking the existing Laboral University complex with a science and technolgy park that surrounds the campus.

The new site has been up and running for four years..as it stands 36 companies have set up home there employing one thousand people. Within the park we find Pablo Priesca a director of Ctic, a consortium that wants the new technologies brought closer to the people, “The 90’s were defined by a number of strategies to bring about economic change and open up the local economy to new innovations. With that in mind the regional government carried out a research programme to target which activities to prioritise one of them was information technology.”

Hundreds of young people are being trained by Ctic to use the new technologies as software devoloper Francisco Florez explains.

“ What we see here is Fantas-Technik, a project for school children, using these tools makes it easier to train young children and we can take it into schools.” The presence of the Gijon scientific park brings in young devolopers from all over Spain, most of them just out of university, they bring with them new ways of solving problems.” The creativity of these individuals moves in different areas…here a machine has been devoloped to dispence cider. To get the best from cider it must be poured from a height, which helps oxigenate the drink, its a tradition that could die out if new technology was not devoloped to preserve the tradition.

It is this healthy mix of tradition and modernity that shows a way out of a crisis and plots a path for the future of Gijon.