The Dutch multinational AkzoNobel will be creating 80 new jobs in Catalonia with the expansion of production at its plant located in Barcelona’s Zona Franca district. The company will be investing 14 million euros to relocate its production of paints and coatings for the automotive sectors to its factory in Catalonia, in an investment project backed by the Catalan Government.

According to the Catalan Minister for Business and Labour, Roger Torrent i Ramió, “investments like AkzoNobel’s show why Catalonia is one of Europe’s leading regions in the chemical and automotive industries.” “The project to relocate automotive paints to the Zona Franca district is an example of the type of investments that we the Catalan Government aim to encourage: projects that reindustrialise Catalonia based on criteria of sustainability and circular economy.”

The relocation project to Barcelona’s Zona Franca district will enable the company to increase its production and R&D activities related to paints and coatings for the automotive sector. In fact, the Barcelona plant, which currently employs 566 people, will become the group’s most important plant in Europe in this division.

According to AkzoNobel’s Manufacturing Director Europe West & Country Custodian Iberia, Sergio Olivas, “with the consolidation of development and manufacturing activities for the European automotive market at the Barcelona plant, we can continue creating synergies to ensure the future competitiveness of our centres, especially in a sector that is as strategic as the automotive sector in Catalonia.” Olivas said that “this commitment is an important lever for continuing to create skilled jobs in the areas of operations and product development in the chemical sector,” and that “the transfer of products enables us to continue helping to create a business and local ecosystem that fosters innovation and development.”

This new investment is in addition to the opening of a new hub in Catalonia at the end of 2021, which will centralise the planning and management of all the company’s production plants and warehouses across Europe, in a project that involved the creation of 65 skilled jobs.

With a commercial presence in more than 150 countries, AkzoNobel currently employs 1,140 people in Catalonia, with 566 of them located at the Zona Franca facility in Barcelona, the company’s headquarters in Spain.