The Government grants 860,000 aid from the Digital Kit for the digitalization of SMEs in more than 7,500 municipalities

The Government says it has granted within the program Digital Kit 860,000 aid for the digitalization of SMEssubsidies that have reached companies from more than 7,500 municipalities from all over the country. These are the data that the Minister for Digital Transformation, Óscar López, announced this Monday in a press conference called to take stock of this initiative, launched in March 2022 to boost the competitiveness of the Spanish productive fabric and financed with the European Next Generation funds.

Once the deadline for submitting applications has ended and after five calls, the Ministry for Digital Transformation has recorded a total of 1.2 million requests receivedof which 860,000 have already been granted, waiting for the last applications to be processed. These data They far exceed the objective initially agreed between the Government and the European Commissionwhich was to reach 676,000 SMEs and the self-employed, with a total amount of 3,067 million euros. The grants cover a wide variety of digital solutions, such as e-commerce, social network management, customer management, business intelligence and analytics, process management, invoices, virtual office, cybersecurity, etc.

López has highlighted the territorial impact of this aid package, which has reached companies spread across 92% of Spanish municipalities. It has also had a special impact on sectors that until now were further behind in the implementation of digital solutions, such as construction or agriculture and livestock. In these two areas there have been 80,436 and 41,803 beneficiaries respectively, to which are added 45,695 concessions in the transportation and communications sector and 33,675 in other manufacturing industries. Taking into account that each aid includes support for several operations, in total there are more than 700,000 projects underway and 500,000 have already been implemented.

With this balance, López has described the Digital Kit as a “success”, highlighting the management by Red.es. According to data from the ministry, 65% of SMEs that have participated in this initiative declare that they have increased their productivity and more than a third have increased their turnover after implementing digital solutions. “European funds have served and serve,” remarked López, who has also highlighted the indirect impact of this aid, by also promoting the development of the Spanish ICT sector.

The minister stressed that the Digital Kit program has also allowed change the way in which the administration itself provides its servicesmoving towards a more agile management model. Thus, for example, in the processing of this aid, paper procedures have been eliminated with the incorporation of 39 robots that have made it possible to grant 687,000 subsidies automatically and reduce deadlines from 3 hours to 3 minutes. This has allowed a saving of 9 million hours in administrative management. However, also 1.3 million telephone calls have been answered and 700,000 proactive contacts have been made from the administration in search of interested companies.

“The Digital Kit closes a stage confirming the example of excellence in the Spanish management of Next Generation funds”celebrated López, who has announced the launch of a website to monitor the impact of this initiative and recalled that, although the SME program has ended, other lines of aid for medium-sized companies and AI projects and sectoral data spaces are still underway. The minister has defended that if Spain is currently one of the fastest growing European economies, it is also thanks to “modernization” initiatives such as the Digital Kit.