The Craft Center of the Valencian Community, hosted on September 15, the third face-to-face meeting of the National Craft Observatory taking advantage of the celebration of the II Congress of Contemporary Crafts, which was held at the School of Design of Valence (EASD).
The Observatory is one of the actions proposed in the Action Plan that Fundesarte has developed within the CRAFTS CODE project, which aims to bring together the different actors related to the craft sector in Spain to share experiences and establish joint strategies to improve the competitiveness of the sector.
The director of the craft center, Miquel Clemades, opened the meeting in which representatives of public administrations from 11 autonomous communities participated (Andalusia, Aragon, Principality of Asturias, Balearic Islands -Mallorca-, Castilla y León, Catalonia, Galicia, Region of Murcia, Navarra, La Rioja, Valencian Community), as well as Oficio y Arte and the National Craft Reference Center. Some of them followed the meeting online.
On this occasion, issues related to the current situation of crafts in the different communities were put on the table, including training and support for entrepreneurship. Carmen Páez, General Secretary of the School of Industrial Organization (EOI) proposed the incorporation of the Observatory as a Working Group of the State Council for SMEs, with the aim of raising different proposals and work plans. Later, some actions of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (RRTP) that could be relevant to the sector were also presented.
On the other hand, the training plan for entrepreneurs and craft SMEs, that Fundesarte developed within the framework of the CRAFTS CODE project, was also presented. The objective of these programmes is to improve the competitiveness of the sector through training in business models, finance and accounting, marketing, product development, sustainability, digitization, etc. These courses will be developed throughout the national territory and aim to train more than 200 craft companies between 2022 and 2023.
