The Galician Business Areas Law was created to streamline and make the planning and establishment of land for companies more flexible. The Galician Government decided to provide a more comprehensive regulation of the Community's business areas in order to guarantee a balance between the sustainable use of the territory and the promotion of economic activity.

The Law is based around the generation of suitably urbanised business land at a reasonable cost, which allows the implementation of business activities linked to secondary and tertiary sector activities, key to boosting business development and guaranteeing the socioeconomic progress of Galicia along with the creation of stable, quality employment.

There are two areas of application of the Law: business areas of regional interest, promoted under the sectoral instruments for the planning of business areas in the Autonomous Community of Galicia; and matters relating to the management and conservation of business areas, which in this case also applies to other areas, both publicly and privately promoted, located throughout Galicia.

Its objectives include simplifying and making the procedures for the planning and execution of business land more flexible in order to adapt the supply of land to the real needs of companies, speeding up the procedures for the approval of the instruments necessary for their implementation, generating the appropriate regulatory framework to take advantage of new opportunities for business development, promoting the creation of strategic land reserves that allow, in shorter periods, the implementation of business initiatives, as well as the creation of entities for the conservation, management and modernisation of urban business areas, formed by the owners of the plots of land.

Legal status of Enterprising Municipalities

The Enterprising Municipalities initiative, to which 153 municipalities are currently adhered, is based on the Collaboration Protocol signed on 10 October 2017 by the Galician Regional Government and the Galician Federation of Municipalities and Provinces.

The commitments reached in this Protocol allowed the establishment of a framework of cooperation between the territorial administrations of Galicia with competences in the implantation and establishment of companies in order to join efforts in favour of the reactivation and stimulation of the economy.

In the context of this Protocol, the adhering municipalities voluntarily undertake to establish tax rebates on real estate taxes (IBI), economic activities (IAE) and constructions, installations and works (ICIO). They also undertake to expedite the processing of urban planning license applications and other actions that encourage the demand for business land owned by them.

Now, with the approval of the Law of business areas of Galicia, the figure of Enterprising Municipality is reinforced and elevated to the rank of law.

On the one hand, the Galician Regional Government gives priority to local councils entrepreneurs in the aid orders that are convened on a competitive basis to promote employment, local trade or those projects related to industry. This will be done through a specific evaluation criterion that on the scoring scale will represent at least 20% of the total in favour of the actions carried out by Enterprising Municipalities.

On the other hand, with the objective of favouring the implementation and development of business initiatives in the entrepreneurial municipalities, in the calls for subsidies addressed to companies, self-employed or non-profit entities in competitive concurrence, they are intended to be implemented or developed in an Enterprising Municipality, incorporating a specific evaluation criterion that on the scoring scale will represent between 5% and 10% of the total into the bases of the call.