Alstom's impact in Catalonia: 1,500 employees and over €200 million in purchases

BarcelonaWhen passengers take a commuter train, metro, or tram in Barcelona, ​​they are often unaware that the carriages were manufactured nearby. Specifically, at the Alstom plant in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, which employs over 1,100 workers.

The Santa PepaThe company, as it is known to employees, has undergone a major expansion in recent years to be able to handle the multi-million dollar contracts it has been awarded, such as future commuter trains either the new FGC line at the airportThis has more than doubled the workforce since 2019, when Alstom employed only around 500 workers. These are some of the figures from a report prepared by EY, which the company presented this Monday at the headquarters of Foment del Treball. Attendees there admitted to using the AVE high-speed trains to Madrid, also manufactured in Santa Perpètua, more often than the tram. However, the CEO and president of Alstom in Spain, Leopoldo Maestu, repeatedly emphasized the "success" the tram is bringing to the Catalan capital, with record ridership for years, and even more so since the first phase of the Diagonal connection became operational. "We must value and protect public transport: it is a social asset of paramount importance," argued Maestu, who is also president of Tram, representing Alstom as one of the company's main shareholders.

Investment of €150M

To fit together the pieces of this expansion phase in Santa Perpètua, Alstom has had to adapt and expand the factory with new elements such as a maintenance workshop for the FGC trains that will run to the airport. All these actions have represented an investment of 150 million euros in recent years, allowing the plant to reach a capacity of 450 cars and trams per year. It has also added a new 20,000-square-meter logistics warehouse in La Llagosta. Now, particularly busy with the Renfe order, it remains to be seen what contracts it will secure in the coming years, after the contract for the new Barcelona metro trains, essential for the L9 extension, was unsuccessful and TMB has had to resubmit its bid.

But the Santa Perpètua factory, managed by Cristina Andériz, doesn't just work for local public transport operators. From these 360,000 square meter facilities, tram cars for Sydney, Casablanca, and Athens were manufactured, as well as metro trains for Santo Domingo, Panama City, and Lima. These orders mean that the Santa Perpètua plant accounts for 15% of all Catalan exports of transport equipment, with average exports of €187 million annually over the last three years. In Catalonia, Alstom also has facilities in various locations, including maintenance centers for the Irvia commuter trains in Montcada i Reixac, Mataró, and Vilanova; and for trams in Sant Joan Despí and Sant Adrià de Besòs. In total, it has about ten centers, employing more than 1,500 workers. This network works with more than 320 Catalan suppliers, many of them SMEs, and generated a purchase volume of €207 million in the last fiscal year. Some examples include Margon, CM4 Ingeniería, Kuadrotek, Refisa, Massats, and Electrans. "We act as a lever for growth and help create a robust and resilient business fabric, capable of competing internationally. Alstom wants to continue being an example of a major industry committed to Catalonia, and to act as a benchmark for the sector and an engine of local growth," Maestu emphasized. Catalonia is Alstom's main hub in Spain, where it employs nearly 3,000 workers and closed purchases worth more than €530 million with a thousand suppliers. With a presence in more than sixty countries, the multinational recorded a turnover of 18.5 billion euros and has a global workforce of 86,000 employees.