Spain: Cooperatives from Almería have 1 billion Euro turn over
Presenting the event were the mayor of El Ejido, Francisco Góngora Cara; the president of Faeca Andalucía, Jerónimo Molina Herrera, the president of Faecta Almería, Juan Francisco Ibáñez Padilla; and the president of Coexphal-Faeca Almería, Manuel Galdeano Moreno.
This year, the meeting has a special interest - the declaration in the United Nations General Assembly, on the International Year of Cooperation, under the theme "The cooperative companies help to create a better world."
The first to speak was the mayor of El Ejido, that thanked to the organizers their choice of this municipality for headquarters of this international meeting. "We are also going to take the chance with the people coming out of Andalucía to show them the municipality of El Ejido, our gastronomy and our tourism and leisure activities."
"In El Ejido we are quite happy for the work developed today. I hope that, apart from cooperativeness, new challenges are set for the agricultural and productive model in the province of Almería and in the whole Andalucía," he concluded.
Manuel Galdeano highlighted the fact that "each 4 Euro in the Andalucian cooperatives sector is generated in Almería. Faeca Almería counts presently on 72 cooperatives, with a turnover above the 1 billion Euro, giving direct work to 9,000 workers, commercializing the products of almost 9,000 farmers that cultivate some 16,000 hectares worked by about 45,000 people."
The president of Faecta-Almeria insisted on the fact that there's no place in the country for a bigger celebration than the International Day of Cooperativeness.
Jerónimo Alonso closed the presentation moment defending the cooperativeness in Almería. "We have to recall that Almería is what is it and we left the marginality situation in which we were for 30 years, when we were at the end of the any provincial economy ranking in Spain, thanks to farming, but above all, thanks to the cooperativeness from the Almería farmers."