The government's decision to close non-essential activities bumps into the US multinationals based in Spain. The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Spain, Jaime Malet, has addressed a letter on behalf of the subsidiaries of these multinationals to the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in which he calls for the decree to be smoothed out through a flexible interpretation of one of its articles. key, which allows "indispensable minimum activity". Otherwise, it is difficult to fulfill orders even with the United States Department of Defense, which some of the Chamber's members supply from Spain.

"Some of our partners are large manufacturing companies that work in plants with a continuous production cycle. The interruption of many of these activities can cause serious damage to the facility itself, preventing an early resumption of activity in these industries when the state of alarm ceases. , in addition to a serious danger of accidents.

On the other hand, many of these companies attend to international orders with clients that provide services considered essential in their respective countries (for example to the US military) , or have finished production processes with finished products ready for export, "warns Malet.

"The impediment of these exports can give rise to situations of litigation in one sector, the exporter, critical for the recovery of the Spanish economy, " the president emphasized in a letter also sent to the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, and the Minister of Industry. , Reyes Maroto.

"For this reason, we suggest to the Government a prompt clarification for these industries on the way in which Article 4 of the aforementioned Royal Decree on minimum essential activity should be interpreted, requesting a broad interpretation ," the letter said. Malet suggests that companies be allowed to decide what they can do by committing to act responsibly.

However, it does not question the measures taken. "We express our support for the Government in this difficult situation and we trust that the

measures adopted will speed up the normalization of economic activity for the benefit of Spanish society ".

The Chamber includes IBM, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, Cisco, 3M and Spanish companies such as Telefónica and Indra, among others.

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  • Spain
  • U.S
  • Salvador Illa
  • Telefónica
  • Reyes Maroto
  • Pedro Sánchez
  • Microsoft

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