Valencia, (EFE).- The sustainable mobility fair eMobility Expo World Congress has started this Monday in Valencia with the aim of consolidating this city and Spain as the center of “the revolution of respect” of sustainable mobility as a commitment to the environment environment and economic and labor dynamism.
This was expressed at the official opening of the fair by the Secretary General for Transport and Mobility of the Ministry, María José Rallo, the President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig and the Councilor for Finance of the Valencia City Council, Borja Sanjuán.
“Disruptive” changes in transportation
María José Rallo has considered that the transport sector is facing “absolutely disruptive and unprecedented changes” with three main axes in decarbonisation, digitization and “the importance of the social component, of putting people at the center of decisions”.
“It is increasingly necessary to promote ecosystems between the public and private sectors”, considered Rallo, who stated that the Ministry “is clear on what the mobility of the future should be like: mobility that gradually abandons fossil fuels”.
“A mobility -he added- centered on people, with public transport that has to be efficient, that gives more space in cities to people and that does not forget the needs of rural environments or in population decline”.
To achieve this, it has identified three sectoral policy instruments: the Safe, Sustainable and Connected Mobility Strategy, the Sustainable Mobility Law and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan “to accelerate investments”.
Puig celebrates “effervescence coupled with innovation”
For his part, the President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, celebrated the existence of “an effervescence attached to what innovation means” and referred to “the metro and tram units manufactured by Stadler in the Valencian Community”, to public-private collaboration in the case of iryo and to the work of “the largest regional airline, Air Nostrum, or that of the Baleària ferries that link the two shores of the Mediterranean.”
The president stated that “Almussafes is the electric heart” of “a colossus” like Ford, to which is added “another giant that has built its first gigafactory in southern Europe here”, Volkswagen.
“In addition, the first Spanish rocket will be born from Elche, because we are not giving up space”, he added, and stressed that “this is the new image of the Valencian Community associated with the new mobility”.
The Community wants to be a “sustainable mobility pole”
Ximo Puig has pointed out the “ambition” of turning the Valencian Community “into a pole of sustainable mobility in southern Europe” and has celebrated that in eMobility “the entire value chain, all the verticals and all the actors are brought together”.
Likewise, he stressed that Eurobat “will turn Valencia tomorrow into the European capital of electric batteries”, something that “comes at a decisive moment”, in the midst of a decade “of great transitions”.
Among the “strengths” of the Community, the president highlighted its “strategic and well-connected location”, its “human capital with universities in all world rankings or its capacity for energy autonomy, with a powerful renewable energy cluster”.
The Councilor for Finance of the Valencia City Council, Borja Sanjuán, has considered that initiatives such as eMobility represent “a way of being Valencian” because the capital of the Region is “a city intrinsically open, not to change what we are but to improve” .
“The intention of the Region and of Valencia is to bet very firmly and resolutely on green reindustrialisation”, he highlighted.
He has opted for “not confronting growth and sustainability” and has added that “transitions can only be faced with an absence of fanaticism”.
“We want to be a mobility ‘hub’ because we have a deep respect not only for the environment but also for the people who can make this project their life project”, highlighted Sanjuán, who has called to start “the revolution of respect environment” and economic growth and employment.