Balearic government to tighten up on spending and crack down on corruption

PALMA
AFTER two days of debating the state of the Balearics, the local parliament yesterday agreed on a new set of measures to fight the recession and crack down on corruption.

The majority of MPs yesterday voted in favour of a cross-the-board tightening up of expenditure in all government ministries, public companies, consortiums and foundations in order to release more money for the government's anti-recession measures.

NEW APPROACH
A new approach to resolving the region's unemployment problem is going to be devised and those on or below the poverty line will be given access to new sources of aid.

Companies are also going to be offered incentives to create new jobs and also increase the number of disabled employees.
Some of the areas where the government is going to be looking to create jobs is in renewable energy and the agricultural sectors.
In an attempt to protect and preserve the region's ailing farming industry, a wide range of measures are going to be introduced to help bolster the various agricultural cooperatives.

The government is also going to continue expanding the ParcBit technology park by attracting more “clusters” of small technology, innovation and investigation companies to the island.

To ease the financial burden on the Balearic population in general, the government is also going to increase the resident travel discount which is currently 50 percent on domestic air and sea routes.

MPs also voted in favour of the first phase of the airport tram project which will link the city centre with Son San Joan before eventually being extended to Arenal and Santa Ponsa.