San Sebastián, September 21, 2024.- The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service, Óscar López, visited this Saturday the Office Acelera Sme Ingenierak of San Sebastián, located at the College of Industrial Engineers of Gipuzkoa. There he met with representatives of SMEs benefiting from the Digital Kit, who explained to the minister the improvements promoted in their companies thanks to this initiative. In addition, he has been able to learn about the operation of the Office Acelera SME, and the type of services it provides to Basque SMEs, accompanying them in their digital transformation process.

During the meeting, López stressed the importance of this capillary network of 155 physical locations that, through business associations, professional associations and technology centers, provides advisory services and support in the field of new technologies to SMEs throughout the country. In total, it has already offered assistance to more than 150,000 SMEs in person and has received more than 40 million visits in its virtual space, the Platform Accelerate SME. The Acelera SME initiative is managed through the public entity Red.es.

Minister López highlighted in particular the role of Acelera SME in the dissemination of the successful Kit Digital program, which subsidizes the implementation of digital solutions in SMEs to facilitate their digital transformation, and which according to the latest data has involved an investment of more than 1.9 billion euros that has already reached 462,000 companies, more than 16,000 of them in the Basque Country for a total amount of 76 million euros. “I think this is a good example for society to see that European funds are coming to this country, specifically to modernize and digitize the businesses of many SMEs and the self-employed,” López explained.

Of these 16,000 SMEs, 1,400 are dedicated to construction, which means 6.7 million euros to one of the sectors that promote growth in the Basque Country. As for the most demanded catalog digitization solutions in the Basque Country: firstly, with more than 27.5% website and basic presence on the Internet, followed by process management with more than 16% and social network management with around 12%.

The minister also indicated that the recent Kit Consulting program, which offers bonds to hire consulting services to companies in the field of digital transformation, has already been requested by 400 Basque companies, which would be equivalent to 5 million euros. In Spain as a whole, Kit Consulting has received more than 7,400 applications, thus achieving in only 3 months half of the target; the total amount of these applications amounts to EUR 104 million.