Eduadro Soriano, President of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce
EDUARDO SORIANO
President
MALLORCA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
«BALEARIC ISLANDS, SUSTAINABLE EXCELLENCE»
The Ambassadors Sections
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MALLORCA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
140 YEARS PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH IN MALLORCA
Founded on September 29th, 1886, the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce enters its landmark 140th anniversary year having firmly established itself as the undisputed benchmark and engine for the island’s commerce, industry, and technological innovation.
This historic milestone follows the consolidation of its highly successful Cambra Club, a thriving corporate hub bridging over 500 members—composed of 44% autonomous entrepreneurs and 56% established companies—fostering deep synergies and resources to catalyze local business activity.
As an exemplary institution profoundly committed to Mallorca’s productive fabric, the Chamber remains firmly oriented toward building future-proof talent.
Through the intensive promotion of Dual Vocational Training, the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce bridges the gap between premium employment opportunities for the youth and the specialized qualified professionals required by local businesses.
Furthermore, the Chamber continues to play a decisive role in maximizing regional competitive advantages, driving awareness around strategic fiscal tools like the REB (Special Regime of the Balearic Islands).
This critical framework provides tailored tax incentives designed to support 90% of the Balearic business structure, actively mitigating the unique operating costs associated with insularity.
Today, at The Ambassadors Sections, we explore the vision of Eduardo Soriano, recently re-elected as President of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce for the 2026–2030 term.
The President shares his strategic perspective on aligning vocational training with a volatile labor market, leveraging public-private collaboration to address pressing structural island challenges, and creating an unmissable destination for high-value international Investment.
Eduadro Soriano, President of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce
Dear President, thank you very much for welcoming us within the framework of our International Campaign «Balearic Islands, Sustainable Excellence».
Our main objective is to highlight Mallorca’s unique strengths as an optimal destination—not only from a tourism perspective but also as a robust economic and business hub with immense potential to attract high-value international investment.
First of all, our warmest congratulations on being re-elected by the Plenary as President of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce for the 2026–2030 term. What will be your main priorities during this new mandate?
Thank you, Patricia, for your kind words, and to The Ambassadors Sections for inviting us to contribute to the international promotion and prestige of Mallorca, our companies, and our entrepreneurs.
It has been 140 years since the foundation of the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca, and it is a true honor to celebrate and commemorate this legacy alongside the authorities and businesses of our island—those who truly give meaning, shape, and momentum to our institution’s mission.
This new mandate, which beautifully coincides with our landmark 140th anniversary (1886–2026), features a renewed Executive Committee fully prepared to defend the global interests of Mallorca.
In the context of today’s volatile and fiercely competitive global environment, public-private collaboration is more relevant than ever.
At the Chamber, we remain fully receptive and committed to working closely with public administrations to foster a regulatory framework that promotes fair competition across all strategic sectors, including tourist accommodation, transport, catering, and construction.
To that end, our absolute priority for this new term will be strengthening the competitiveness of the island’s businesses while directly tackling the structural issues that condition our economy.
The most critical of these challenges is access to housing; it is a profound issue that transcends any single sector and directly impacts our companies’ ability to attract and retain talent.
We must deliver joint solutions with public administrations through real, effective, and continuous public-private synergy.
Moving forward, the Chamber will continue to be the firm, unyielding voice of our productive fabric before institutions, acting with determination, organization, strategic management, and rigorous follow-up.
We will consolidate the successful path started four years ago to maintain a strong, agile, and useful Chamber, which today boasts a balanced budget and significantly increased corporate activity.
To achieve this, we will maintain innovation and digitalization as priority strategic pillars, relying on our Office for the Promotion of Innovation and the Startup Acceleration Programs we develop alongside the Govern Balear.
Likewise, we will aggressively boost the internationalization of our local businesses, promote efficient dispute resolution through arbitration and mediation, and champion employment-oriented training to empower our youth.
Eduadro Soriano, re-elected as the President with the newly constitued Plenary of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce
President, two years ago, the celebration of the Chamber’s 138th Anniversary was attended by the President of the Balearic Government, Mrs. Margalida Prohens, alongside a distinguished group of institutional leaders including Vice President Antoni Costa and Conseller Alejandro Sáenz de San Pedro.
What were the core reflections on Mallorca’s business fabric that you shared with them during this landmark event?
First and foremost, our dialogue centered on the absolute necessity of continuously driving the competitiveness of our local enterprises, specifically by fostering a premium Dual Vocational Training system that directly resolves the current talent shortages impacting our core industries.
The Chamber’s core mission remains to diversify and internationalize our business fabric through targeted, highly productive services tailored to support every Mallorcan company, regardless of its sector, scope, or size.
To protect this fabric, I emphasized that we must aggressively implement measures to eradicate unfair competition.
It is unacceptable for law-abiding, strictly compliant businesses to operate at a disadvantage against those acting outside the law.
To counter this, the Chamber is closely collaborating with regional authorities to design a robust regulatory framework that guarantees fair competition across critical sectors like tourist accommodation, transport, catering, and construction.
Furthermore, given our insular reality, we must firmly demand that the Special Regime of the Balearic Islands (REB) advances with compensatory measures designed to offset our structural competitive handicaps.
We cannot afford to lose momentum. Mallorca’s reliance on external supply chains has reached an alarming threshold, exceeding 90% across multiple strategic sectors.
It is a macroeconomic vulnerability we must actively correct.Moving forward into this new mandate, our goal is to systematically reinforce the local productive sector to satisfy at least 50% of the island’s internal consumption needs.
We are doing this by developing resilient, self-sufficient local solutions that harmoniously complement tourism—our primary economic engine—while actively expanding our global horizons.
This includes our recent strategic alliances with the European Consular Corps and emerging bilateral commercial agreements with high-growth markets like Poland, ensuring Mallorca remains both locally strong and globally connected.
The President of the Balearic Government, Margalida Prohens, has highly praised your institution, defining the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca as «one of the fundamental pillars for the development of our economy, key to improving business competitiveness, and a fundamental support for SMEs to open up to new markets.»
That is right. President Prohens’ words perfectly align with our deeply rooted vocation of service.
For the general interest of our economy, we work tirelessly to ensure that the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca operates as one of the most effective, agile, and efficient corporate bodies on the island.
This is especially true regarding specialized training, where we act as a vital bridge ensuring the seamless integration of top-tier talent into local companies while granting young people optimal paths into the labor market.
A key driver of this success is our Comprehensive Qualification and Employment Programme (PICE), through which we actively assist companies in recruiting and hiring highly qualified young professionals trained directly under our rigorous standards.
Furthermore, our business ecosystem is continuously energized by Club Cambra, our premier corporate support platform. Having successfully passed its landmark 10-year milestone, the Club continues to expand its reach, offering exclusive advantages, strategic networking, and specialized training to over 500 members—a robust network balanced between 44% autonomous entrepreneurs and 56% established companies.We remain immensely grateful for the institutional support shown during our historic 138th Anniversary gala, which brought together key leaders such as President Margalida Prohens; the Secretary of State for Tourism, Rosario Sánchez; the Government Delegate, Alfonso Rodríguez; and the Balearic Minister of Enterprise, Employment, and Energy, Alejandro Sáenz de San Pedro.
That strong institutional backing laid the perfect foundation for the ambitious goals we are now executing in this new mandate.
Eduadro Soriano, President of the Mallorca Chamber of Commerce with Margalida Prohens, President of the Balearic Islands Regional Government
President, alongside business competitiveness, another foundational pillar in the Chamber’s strategy is internationalization. How is your institution supporting companies as they expand beyond our borders?
Without a doubt. Aside from public administrations, the Chambers of Commerce are the primary institutions dedicating the largest volume of resources, specialized guidance, and logistical support to promote corporate internationalization.
Here at the Chamber of Mallorca, we boast an exceptional team of international trade professionals dedicated to equipping our companies and entrepreneurs with the strategies needed to compete successfully on local, national, and global scales.
We don’t just provide generic advice; we design tailored export strategies, offer pinpoint geopolitical guidance, and implement methodologies that build a resilient structural foundation for growth, adapted to the maturity of each target market.
A core vehicle for this is our current rollout of the Xpande and Xpande Digital programs, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), which inject targeted economic aid directly into SMEs to fund their international expansion plans.
Furthermore, we are actively forging strategic alliances with the European Consular Corps—such as our recent commercial agreements with the Polish Consulate—to open fresh, lucrative export corridors for Mallorcan products.
Statistically in Spain, while nearly 49% of companies engage in occasional export activity, only about 4% manage to do so on a regular, consistent basis.
Our ultimate objective at the Chamber is to break that cycle: we don’t want our local businesses to merely execute one-off transactions abroad; we want to transform them into permanent, structurally sound, and sustainable global exporters.
Crucially, we understand that international expansion cannot happen without technological parity. This is why we seamlessly connect internationalization with digital transformation.
Through our highly successful Oficina Acelera Pyme—operated in close collaboration with Red.es and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce—and our newly established Oficina de Innovación, we provide continuous technological support to modernize the local fabric.
In fact, through our recent Digital Tours across various municipalities on the island, we are actively delivering free diagnostic consultancies, practical webinars, and direct aid management right to the doorstep of our small businesses and self-employed professionals.
Best of all, all of these strategic services are completely free of charge and fully accessible to Mallorca’s corporate fabric year-round.
President, along with general competitiveness, how is the Chamber strengthening its direct connection to local businesses through its private network, Club Cambra?
A cornerstone of this effort is the celebration of the 12th Anniversary of Club Cambra Mallorca, our premier business platform specifically designed to promote specialized services, unlock exclusive commercial advantages, and deliver strategic resources to boost the economic activity of our Preferred Members.
Over the past twelve years, Club Cambra has evolved into a vital corporate ecosystem that actively invests in Corporate Social Responsibility, represents and fiercely defends the general interest of local companies, and catalyzes the sustainable growth of entrepreneurs and SMEs across Mallorca.
Moving into this new mandate, the Club has significantly deepened its utility by consolidating its high-value Business and Business TIC membership tiers.
These specialized segments are designed to help local SMEs securely transition into the digital era by providing direct access to cutting-edge IT and cybersecurity solutions on par with large corporations.
Furthermore, we have forged powerful new strategic alliances explicitly designed to maximize the visibility, brand positioning, and networking capabilities of our members.We don’t just offer standard corporate benefits; we actively cultivate a community of excellence.
Through exclusive elite networking events, localized business forums, and executive professional workshops, ranging from advanced digital transformation consultancies to high-level executive training like our popular masterclasses on professional public speaking and corporate communication, we ensure our members possess the contemporary tools required to thrive.
Club Cambra remains an indispensable, forward-thinking partner for any company or autonomous professional aiming to expand their market footprint and drive shared prosperity throughout the Balearic business ecosystem.
President, let’s talk about tourism. Over the years, Mallorca has undergone a spectacular transformation and is currently appreciated and valued as one of the most attractive destinations in Europe.
Indeed. The Balearic Islands have consistently proven to be one of the safest, most stable, and most sophisticated regions in Spain, offering an exceptional climate, a strategic Mediterranean location, and premium connectivity.
Our world-class health system and advanced infrastructure create a premier environment for both visiting and long-term investing, which heavily drives our real estate and corporate landscapes.
However, entering this new 2026–2030 mandate, our vision for tourism has profoundly evolved.
The great debate is no longer about growing in volume, but about driving structural value.
This year, the Chamber proudly collaborated with the Banco de España to launch a critical institutional initiative: «From Intensity to Value: The Necessary Adaptation of the Tourism Model».
As I underscored during its inauguration, true sustainability cannot simply be an environmental slogan; it must be backed by a resilient economic sustainability capable of absorbing the costs required to make this green transition viable.
To turn this vision into action, we are actively guiding our local business fabric to capitalize on major public funding, such as the newly deployed Sustainable Tourism Tax (ITS) subsidies.
These programs funnel millions of euros directly into our hospitality sector, financing deep technological renovations, thermal insulation, and cutting-edge energy efficiency models.
We are actively steering our industry away from price-driven competition and firmly toward high-end, quality-led market leadership.
This transition toward sustainable luxury and intentional business design is vibrantly visible in Palma. The capital has matured into an ultra-cosmopolitan, dynamic metropolis, a premium international mosaic where German, British, French, and Scandinavian residents coexist seamlessly.
This affluent, year-round floating demand has catalyzed a dramatic shift in our hospitality landscape, characterized by the rise of iconic boutique hotels that masterfully blend local historical heritage with contemporary luxury.
When you pair this first-class hotel infrastructure with our booming gastronomic, cultural, and sporting calendars, Palma becomes irresistible.
Furthermore, our commercial sector beautifully mirrors this balance, offering a premium shopping experience that ranges from charming, centuries-old artisan shops carrying local brands to the world’s most prestigious international luxury houses.
We have built a world-class destination where business innovation and an extraordinary lifestyle do not merely coexist—they accelerate each other.
At the business level, coworking spaces proliferate unstoppably throughout the city and become places not only for work but also for networking, where you can establish business contacts in an easy and pleasant way.
Beyond tourism, Palma is also transforming into a premier hub for digital nomads and international professionals. From a business perspective, we see an unstoppable proliferation of coworking spaces across the city that serve not just as workplaces, but as dynamic networking ecosystems.
Mallorca has emerged as a premier year-round hub for international professionals and high-net-worth individuals, driven by exceptional quality of life, robust digital connectivity, and strategic logistical advantages.
Mallorca’s luxury hospitality sector is experiencing a massive influx of institutional investment from global brands, alongside a booming market for high-end workspaces, cementing its status as a top-tier European economic destination.
President, it is undeniable that Mallorca’s lifestyle remains a primary driver for attracting this global executive talent.
How has the island evolved to balance its timeless charm with the demands of a contemporary, high-net-worth demographic?
It is a profound privilege to visit, live, or work on this extraordinary island, which seamlessly blends vibrant business opportunities with an unparalleled quality of life.
Blessed with over 300 days of sunshine a year, Mallorca has matured into a premier sanctuary for international professionals seeking a more conscious, balanced, and intentional lifestyle.
Our culinary landscape has played a decisive role in this positioning; today, Mallorcan gastronomy is a major economic and tourism engine, celebrated globally for its excellence and currently boasting a record-breaking array of Michelin Stars and Michelin Green Stars that honor our commitment to sustainable, zero-kilometer fine dining.
Crucially, Palma’s growth has been deeply organic, marked by a sophisticated model of urban renaissance rather than unchecked expansion.
Over the years, we have witnessed the spectacular rebirth of historic quarters. Neighborhoods like Santa Catalina, the beautiful historic center, and the iconic Paseo del Borne have been meticulously revitalized into thriving commercial and cultural arteries.
During 2026, this momentum has accelerated through landmark urban redevelopments. The legendary Plaza Gomila has completed its magnificent architectural transformation, evolving into a vibrant, cosmopolitan hub for luxury living, upscale dining, and creative enterprises.
Simultaneously, the historic multi-million euro remodeling of Palma’s Paseo Marítimo is nearing completion, structurally transforming our waterfront into a pedestrian-friendly, green, and high-end commercial boulevard that seamlessly integrates the city with the sea.By prioritizing the rehabilitation of historically rich areas over new construction, Mallorca is successfully creating dynamic new nerve centers.
These spaces do not merely attract higher-caliber, conscious tourism; they actively inject economic vitality directly into our local communities, creating sustainable wealth, fostering innovation, and securing high-quality employment throughout the entire year.
President, while never losing sight of tourism’s foundational role in Mallorca’s economy, diversification is a critical objective for the Chamber, not only through opening up new geographical markets but also by championing non-traditional industries.
Which sectors currently demonstrate the highest potential for growth and high-value investment attraction?
Economic resilience requires a multi-faceted foundation.
While tourism and services will inherently remain the primary drivers of our GDP, Mallorca is experiencing an extraordinary surge in emerging, knowledge-based sectors that offer immense scalability and look highly attractive to international venture capital.
We are actively steering the island into the global map of the New Economy.
First and foremost, the Technology and Innovation ecosystem is booming. Through the Chamber’s close partnership with the Govern Balear on the regional Startup Accelerator Program, we are actively incubation-scaling deep-tech, biotech, and software enterprises.
Mallorca is no longer just a place to vacation; it has become a highly competitive sandbox for tech entrepreneurs who leverage our elite connectivity to run global operations from the Mediterranean.
Equally spectacular is the growth of our Audiovisual Sector. Mallorca has solidified its status as one of Europe’s premier filming and production hubs, attracting major international studios and high-budget streaming productions.
This industry generates massive local economic cross-multiplication, driving high-paying jobs in logistics, creative arts, and advanced digital post-production.In terms of industrial excellence, our Nautical and Marine Sector leads the Western Mediterranean.
The world-class refit and repair infrastructures at Palma’s port, anchored by continuous technological modernizations, attract the global superyacht fleet year-round, fostering a highly specialized micro-economy of marine engineering, advanced craftsmanship, and international maritime services.
Finally, we are seeing a profound shift toward sustainability as a business model.
The Circular Economy and Sustainable Agri-business are no longer alternative niches—they are mainstream corporate imperatives.
There is an absolute boom in high-end local production, organic farming, and viticulture, driven by foreign investors who purchase historic estates to merge traditional Mallorcan heritage with cutting-edge biodynamic technologies.
At the Chamber, we are fully committed to ensuring these diverse sectors receive the structural support, regulatory clarity, and international visibility required to transform Mallorca into a diversified, future-proof economic powerhouse.
Nicole Kidman, hoplessly devoted to Mallorca during the shooting of «Lioness»
All these sectors operate from models that advocate increasingly sustainable formulas.
Digital transformation is also currently an essential condition for improving competitiveness and is also transversal, affecting all productive sectors.
The entrepreneurs of the Balearic Islands, always at the forefront, are willing to lead the way towards a digital transformation and a true circular economy, and in that sense the Chamber of Commerce will always be by their side, as it has always done.
President, we will soon transition to discussing specific corporate initiatives, but touching a bit more on the exciting and promising momentum Mallorca is experiencing, there is another undeniably positive catalyst for our economic and social fabric.
Currently, the main governing bodies of the island are aligned and looking in the exact same direction.
This unity not only accelerates critical strategic plans but provides the Balearic Islands with remarkable political stability—one of the primary factors that high-caliber international investors prioritize when allocating capital.
How does this alignment benefit the Chamber’s mission?
It is an immense competitive advantage, without a doubt.
In the Balearic Islands, our institutional architecture relies on a delicate, multi-tiered balance where every layer of administration is fundamental for good governance.
We have our local town councils actively looking after the immediate progress, infrastructure, and well-being of their municipalities; the Consell de Mallorca focusing heavily on the structural government of our island; and the Govern Balear directing a broader, macro-regional vision required to protect and elevate the entire four-island archipelago.
Entering 2026, the legislative and strategic harmony between these institutions—specifically the shared economic vision shared by the regional government, the island councils, and major town councils like Palma—has fostered an environment of profound institutional stability and legal certainty and security.
This unified direction is precisely what international venture capital and global corporations look for when deciding to establish roots in a territory.
However, we must remain vigilant. When the three layers of administration are highly motivated and moving in the same direction, there is a natural risk of duplicating—or even tripling—public initiatives.
While these programs may have excellent intentions, overlapping regulations can inadvertently complicate administrative processes for our businesses instead of streamlining them.
This is precisely why the Chamber’s institutional role is so critical right now. We act as a vital, neutral bridge to ensure that this political alignment translates into genuine bureaucratic simplification and smooth, frictionless pathways for our enterprises.
We find ourselves in a profound moment of regional re-invention, which is a highly positive exercise.
To ensure we do not become victims of our own success in the future, it is healthy to stop, reflect, and systematically redirect everything that can be improved.
At the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca, we feel a deep institutional responsibility to protect and champion the health of the Balearic economy as a whole. While our primary focus is Mallorca, we are deeply impacted by—and connected to—the economic realities at regional, national, and international levels.
In today’s interconnected global market, we are all part of a larger ecosystem. Our mission is to inject maximum objectivity into the creation of new socioeconomic initiatives, ensuring that this era of shared political goodwill operates as a highly coordinated, high-performing team for the lasting prosperity of Mallorca.
President, let’s talk about business, let’s look closer at the corporate ecosystem in Mallorca.
How do you assess the current climate, and what is the prevailing sentiment among Mallorcan business leaders and global investors on the island today?
The sentiment among Mallorcan business leaders is exceptionally positive, characterized by an unprecedented wave of momentum and strategic optimism.
Moving into the third quarter of 2026, official data confirms that business confidence is growing faster in the Balearic Islands than anywhere else in the country, marking the single largest increase across all of Spain.
This remarkable trajectory is the direct result of a mature, high-value economic model that has evolved flawlessly over the last five decades.
Today, Mallorca’s status as a world-class powerhouse is indisputable at a European level, and increasingly, across the global stage.
A primary driver of this confidence is our legendary hospitality and real estate sector, which has executed a commendable, multi-billion-euro process of continuous modernization and structural asset refurbishment.
Mallorca boasts one of the most sophisticated, elite luxury hotel infrastructures in the Mediterranean basin.
Furthermore, the international expansion of homegrown Mallorcan hospitality multinationals has been nothing short of exemplary.
Our local corporate giants consistently dominate the top tiers of global hospitality rankings, exporting Balearic operational excellence, sustainability standards, and management expertise to every corner of the world.
Far from slowing down, this mastery has triggered an intense counter-inflow of foreign direct investment.
Global luxury brands, institutional funds, and international family offices are actively deploying capital into Mallorca to acquire premium assets and co-invest in our booming corporate ecosystem.
For high-net-worth investors and first-class executives, Mallorca represents a rare intersection: a highly secure, mature market backed by soaring business confidence and an unmatched quality of life.
President, Mallorca’s classic attractions are already deeply ingrained in the global consciousness.
However, as international standards shift toward conscious luxury and impact investing, how is the Chamber leading the structural update of our tourism model to secure its long-term competitive edge?
The traditional allure of Mallorca and the Balearic Islands is undeniably well-established, but our long-term economic resilience depends entirely on our ability to aggressively future-proof this model.
The Chamber is firmly guiding the local corporate fabric through a profound, necessary evolution: a complete pivot toward the circular economy and a deeply responsible, sustainable tourism architecture.
We must make it clear to global markets that true sustainability is no longer a luxury choice—it is a baseline requirement for maintaining macroeconomic competitiveness.
For high-caliber international investors and executives, the strategy is to actively move away from volume-based intensity and focus entirely on value-led growth.
Mallorca’s future lies in maximizing the added value per visitor, ensuring that every corporate deployment enhances our premium infrastructure while preserving the delicate social and environmental balance of the island.
There is a soaring, collective consciousness regarding the natural limitations of our island ecosystem. Consequently, our primary mission is to champion productive activities that respect these boundaries, aggressively promote high-end zero-kilometer local products, and integrate closed-loop circular systems across all business operations.
This is precisely where the most lucrative, forward-thinking investment opportunities reside today.
By investing in the technological modernization of our hospitality assets, renewable energy integration, water-efficiency frameworks, and circular supply chains, investors are not just participating in a green transition—they are securing highly resilient, future-proof assets.
We are proving to the world that a sophisticated lifestyle, robust corporate profitability, and strict environmental stewardship can harmoniously co-exist to create a world-class economic model.
President, Mallorca is globally celebrated for its commercial dynamism, but your local business fabric operates under unique conditions.
How do you analyze the inner mechanics of Mallorcan entrepreneurship, the decline of traditional manufacturing, and the structural paradoxes caused by your insular geography?
The entrepreneurial spirit in the Balearic Islands is extraordinary; our index of entrepreneurship is remarkably high, consistently tracking well above the national Spanish average and outperforming numerous leading European regions.
Mallorcan business leaders possess an innate resilience—they are culturally accustomed to navigating adversities independently, or as we say locally, “pulling the chestnuts out of the fire.”
However, the contemporary landscape has fundamentally changed. The rise of global digital markets and online commerce has dismantled geographical barriers, introducing thousands of aggressive international competitors not just into our tourism sector, but across our entire productive fabric.
In navigating this shift, we must address a dangerous trend in current public discourse: the demonization of tourism. I must firmly emphasize that tourism is, and will remain, the foundational cornerstone of our economic and social well-being.
That said, a candid macroeconomic analysis reveals that over the past two decades, while our tourism sector experienced exponential growth, the traditional productive and manufacturing sectors of the Balearic Islands contracted year after year.
This imbalance has led to an alarming structural dependency. As our historic footwear, textile, and carpentry industries gradually diminished, our local economy became tightly bound to the immediate needs of the hospitality engine.
Today, this has culminated in a striking reality: Mallorca and the broader Balearic archipelago must import up to 90% of our total consumption needs from the outside world.
Correcting this vulnerability is one of the most vital missions of my new mandate. It is imperative that we rebuild our local productive sectors to achieve a highly competitive threshold of at least 50% self-sufficiency.
Reaching 100% self-consumption is an unrealistic expectation for an island economy, but reclaiming a 50% baseline would drastically insulate us from global supply chain shocks and dramatically elevate our regional competitiveness.Achieving this requires leveling the playing field, as Mallorca’s industry currently operates at a severe logistical disadvantage due to the financial penalties of insularity.
We face a fascinating, yet highly damaging economic paradox: because our maritime and air transport links to mainland Spain are highly efficient and affordable, the cost of manufacturing goods directly on the island has lost its competitive edge against simply shipping finished products over from the peninsula.
This brings us to a critical fiscal grievance. Despite being a distinct insular territory facing identical structural handicaps to other archipelagos, the Balearic Islands do not enjoy the same comprehensive tax benefits that the Canary Islands possess under their Special Regime as an outermost region.
While our current Special Regime of the Balearic Islands (REB) is a step in the right direction, it must be continually expanded and aggressively utilized to offset these exact production imbalances.
For international investors, the message is clear: the opportunity does not lie in competing with cheap external manufacturing, but in investing in high-value, tech-driven, and specialized local production that leverages our unique identity while the Chamber fights to secure the fiscal equity our business fabric rightfully deserves.
President, you have pointed out that offsetting insularity requires true fiscal equity.
Could you delve deeper into how the Special Regime of the Balearic Islands (REB) serves as a vehicle for corporate capitalization, and explain the crucial legal bottlenecks—such as the European «De Minimis» rule—that your administration is actively fighting to resolve?
The REB is an institutional tool of extraordinary magnitude for our archipelago. Insularity ensures that our businesses do not operate on an equal playing field with any continental region.
In this context, the REB functions as a vital fiscal incentive designed to directly benefit 90% of the Balearic business structure, helping our fabric absorb the structural financial penalties of our geography across all productive, industrial, agricultural, livestock, fishing, and service-based activities.
Following its initial implementation, we have advanced through critical legislative phases, including the official presentation of the detailed regulatory drafts designed to govern the practical, day-to-day application of the Law.
For international investors and corporate executives, the fiscal advantages of this framework are highly compelling. The REB offers a profound tax reduction of between 80% and up to 90% on Corporate Income Tax (Impuesto sobre Sociedades) and Personal Income Tax (IRPF).
The mechanic is simple yet powerful: as long as corporate profits are retained rather than distributed as dividends, and are strictly channeled into local reinvestment for the legally mandated timeframe, companies can heavily minimize their tax burden.
This structure is explicitly designed to drive the organic capitalization of our enterprises, stimulate deep investments into manufacturing efficiency, and dramatically enhance our overall market competitiveness.
It represents a massive leap forward for our companies and self-employed professionals.
However, a highly restrictive legal nuance remains our greatest hurdle: the European «De Minimis» Law.
When analyzing the core anxieties of the Mallorcan business community today, this constraint sits at the very top.
Under current European state-aid rules, general subsidies and fiscal benefits are strictly capped at a ceiling of €200,000 over any rolling three-year period.
In practical terms, this imposes a rigid straitjacket on our companies, limiting total state and regional aid to an effective average of just €70,000 per year.
This creates a glaring macroeconomic paradox.
While mainland peninsular companies can legally deduct up to €600,000 annually under various established national transport subsidies, a Balearic enterprise attempting to utilize these exact same mechanisms to offset the costs of island transit is immediately blocked by the €70,000 annual «De Minimis» cap.
The Chamber has forcefully escalated this grievance to the highest levels of government, demanding an immediate expansion or exemption from this structural limitation. We must find a sustainable solution.
What is the true utility of having our local and regional institutions beautifully aligned if every single operational progress requires navigating a bureaucratic labyrinth that leads back to Madrid, and ultimately, to Brussels?
We understand that for the European Commission, opening this discussion means opening a complex legal box that other peripheral regions would immediately look to exploit.
Nevertheless, this is a challenge that the Balearic Government must analyze with deep strategic rigor; the solutions are undeniably complex—otherwise, they would have been implemented long ago—but it is an issue that demands relentless institutional work.
Our business community remains deeply hopeful because our regional government fully recognizes and understands the gravity of this bottleneck.
The reality is that local administrations frequently encounter structural limitations or lack the total autonomy of action that we believe they should possess.
It is a long, highly conditional legal battle.
At its core, the Special Regime is a brilliant mechanism designed to reward undistributed corporate results that are committed to modernizing local production systems.
Its tax exemptions are incredibly beneficial, particularly given the small-to-medium asset size that characterizes the Balearic fabric.
But the key to unlocking its maximum effectiveness lies squarely in rewriting or bending this legislative ceiling.
While we know the regional government is working intensively to maximize the REB’s efficiency, time is a luxury we do not have.
As our industrial, agricultural, and livestock outputs have steadily decreased year after year, our productive sector has become increasingly expensive to maintain, causing the pricing gap between Mallorca and the peninsula to widen dangerously.
Overcoming this legal bottleneck is not just about tax relief; it is about preserving the structural economic survival of our island.
President, you have outlined the legal and fiscal dimensions of insularity, but the daily, operational reality inside a Mallorcan factory tells a much more tangible story.
How does our geography alter production systems, and what does it actually cost a company to manufacture goods here compared to the mainland?
It is absolutely critical for the global investment community to understand that insularity is not just a regulatory abstract—it is a daily tax on operational competitiveness.
This is precisely where the Public Administration must step in to aggressively accompany and protect any corporate initiative that elevates the prestige of our local brands and products.
On the peninsular mainland, a factory can achieve immense economies of scale by running systematic, high-volume production lines uninterrupted throughout the day.
Here on the island, that model is practically impossible.
Because our domestic market is structurally confined, Mallorcan factories must operate highly flexible, fragmented manufacturing matrices to satisfy multiple diverse demands simultaneously.
Redesigning these systems and modernizing our supply-chain processes requires substantial capital, carries heavy operational friction, and inherently drives up the cost of raw materials.
If your business depends on importing raw materials from abroad, those inputs are significantly more expensive here in the Balearic Islands than anywhere else on the peninsula.
I know this reality intimately from my own firsthand entrepreneurial experience.
I hold a substantial stake in a prominent local factory dedicated to the food industry.
Operating that exact facility here in the Balearic Islands, rather than on the mainland peninsula, inflicts a structural cost overrun of nearly 1 million euros a year directly onto our operating account.
This is the exact financial gravity of the problem we are fighting to correct.
We must systematically dismantle these barriers and support our productive sector so that we can reverse this alarming 90% dependency on external supply chains.
In this vital endeavor, the Chamber of Commerce plays a foundational, irreplaceable role.
We operate as the primary strategic ally of the Public Administration, injecting raw, real-world corporate data and executive oversight into every public policy, fiscal reform, and infrastructural action designed to safeguard and empower our business fabric
It might occasionally seem that business leaders are prone to constant grievances, but when we challenge the status quo, it is always with the singular intent of driving structural improvement.
Whenever I sit at an institutional table, my objective is never to replicate self-congratulatory praise or focus on what is already functioning smoothly, because if something is going well, it simply means our companies are executing their strategies flawlessly.
Our focus must remain resolutely on what we can improve; that is the only authentic pathway toward sustainable progress.
Despite these geographic hurdles, Mallorcan entrepreneurship is extraordinarily resilient and inherently optimistic.
Our corporate growth rate remains robust and, crucially, access to startup credit and venture capital here in the Balearic Islands tracks remarkably high compared to most other Spanish regions.
Interestingly, when you execute a comparative analysis, you find that the culture of relying on public subsidies is far more accentuated on the mainland peninsula than it is here.
The most defining characteristic of the Balearic business ecosystem is an unyielding ambition: our companies are eager to expand, our workforce is deeply committed, and our entrepreneurs possess a relentless drive to move forward.
For our part, the Chamber of Commerce of Mallorca will remain steadfast in its mission: every single bottleneck, inefficiency, or barrier we identify that limits corporate potential, we will aggressively work to dismantle and improve for the ultimate benefit of our entire economic fabric.
President, what would be your advice for our international investors and business executives, about the best that Mallorca can offer them from a business and investment perspective.
When traveling and discussing Mallorca abroad, I often find that the mere mention of Mallorca evokes a universal sigh…people immediately envision us resting by the sea, immersed in an eternal vacation. My response is always the same: «Look, in Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, we work incredibly hard; we simply have the privilege of doing so from a spectacular setting.»
Driven by our profound cultural openness and a robust, dynamic floating demand, Mallorca presents far more lucrative business opportunities than many other territories.
One only has to look around to see that our world-class tourism, cultural, commercial, and gastronomic landscapes—along with the strong influx of prestigious international brands—are a direct response to this high-caliber demand.
This vibrant ecosystem extends far beyond our local residents, yielding shared prosperity for the entire community.
A substantial number of these thriving enterprises are driven by foreign investors who chose to establish roots here, drawn by our cosmopolitan market, unparalleled business opportunities, and extraordinary quality of life.
I can confidently assure international investors and business executives that exploring the diversity of our business landscape will prove just as compelling and rewarding as discovering the spectacular natural beauty of our island.
We warmly welcome them to come and experience it firsthand; our vibrant business community awaits them in Mallorca.
Eduardo Soriano
President
By Patricia Pal
Palma de Mallorca July 24th 2026
«Balearic Islands, Sustainable Excellence»
NastaONE International Communication & Foreign Investment Trends
EDUARDO SORIANO TORRES
President
Estudi General 7 – 07001
Palma de Mallorca – España
(+34) 971 710 188
Cambra de Mallorca Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/company/cambramallorca/posts/
