Ban on new shopping centres gets the green light from Balearic Government

THE Council of Majorca yesterday gave its backing to the proposal which will ban any more large shopping centres being opened on the islands.
This ruling, if it goes ahead in full, will be effective as from today on all the Balearic Islands. This ban on shopping centres was introducing to stop a possible “avalanche” of requests, said Joesp Juan Cardona, Minister for Trade. In the meantime a new ruling, among other things, needs to be included in the Balearic Commercial Law so that it can regulate this market, he added.
Although the Council of Majorca has given the green light to the shopping centre ban, if the Trade Assessor Board does nopt give its backing, then all will be in vain. Yesterday representatives from the administrations and the from the sector met with the Trade Assesor Board to discuss this same matter. If the Trade Assesor Board does give their backing, then the representatives will start negotiating with the Parliament, so that this ban will be dealt with in the courts. This ban will affect all requests that are made from today onwards. Juan Cardona could not make any guesses on how many requests will be stopped by this ban, but even though some requests are being processed at the moment, it does not necessarily mean that the outcome will be favourable. Last year 64 percent of shopping centre requests were denied. The Minister could also not be more descriptive about the new ruling but he did say that it would be more stricter than the present laws for those who wish to open a shopping centre in the Balearic Islands. At the moment there are two specific limits for new shopping centres. The first depends on the size of the building and where on the islands it is going to be located. For example, a shopping centre in Palma can only be up to 1'300 sqaure metres. The second criteria depends on the amount of sales the business will turn-over, as well as the number of employees.