The Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Aude held its general meeting on Monday May 27. The opportunity, after the presentation of the executed 2023 budget, to deliberate on sales of premises and rentals of plots.
The future will tell if the hope displayed by Louis Madaule on Monday May 27 was justified. At the heart of the AGM of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of Aude, its president bounced back on the approval of the executed budget for 2023: a financial year ended with a net deficit of €237,000, but with a self-financing capacity of €44,000. “Two or three years ago, we were at – €2 million, and last year we landed at – €237,000, recalled Louis Madaule. With the investments that we are going to present to you, we can hope to break even at the end of our mandate (2026, Editor’s note), or maybe more. And on this subject we can thank our predecessors for the real estate heritage they left us.”
Because real estate was going to be discussed on the AGM program. First to vote for the downgrading of the public domain of the premises of 3,300 m22 from the former apprentice training center in Carcassonne; a prerequisite for the following vote, for the sale of these buildings, and more broadly of the plots which housed the ex-CFA, on a land area of 13,680 m2. With a ready-made buyer, EURL Défi Services, of which the CCI is the main shareholder. An actor already “owner of land and the consular hotel in Narbonne”specified the president, within whom “we aim to bring back all of the CCI’s real estate assets”. A goal which therefore involved the acquisition of the ex-CFA for €620,000. It is up to Défi Services to know how to valorize this real estate capital, of which “the sale” had until then “could be achieved despite the various steps taken”.
A renewable hydrogen distribution station for heavy goods vehicles
In Narbonne, it’s land “which we have owned for 30 years” that it was going to be a question. With the vote for a rental of 3,520 m2 of plots, properties of Défi Services. Requested by the company DH’OCC, winner of the European call for projects “Corridor H2 Occitanie”, the CCI has therefore validated the rental of plots intended to become a renewable hydrogen distribution station intended for heavy goods vehicles. A project in direct connection with the hydrogen of Port-la-Nouvelle “the production of which will have to be sold”. A rental which, on the basis of a long lease of 30 years (extendable for 10 years), will bring €25,000 for the immobilization during the duration of the promise, €30,000 for the 1D year of operation, €45,000 for the second, and finally €55,000 from the 3e year and until the end of the lease.
New resources, again. Enough to support the ambitions of financial balance. And allow yourself ambitions: “We had 60 people in Carcassonne and 60 in Narbonne before the merger and the CCI Aude, which today has 39 employees, specified Louis Madaule. And we need to “staff” our workforce to meet the expectations of our companies.”
The year 2023 of the CCI in figures
It was up to Véronique Poutas, director of the CCI, to present the chamber’s 2023 activity report. The opportunity to measure the weight of a room serving 25,000 active companies registered with the RCS (commercial register of companies). Enough to generate intense activity for the 39 employees, with, in particular, 667 support for the creation, transfer or takeover of a business, but also 6,300 formalities completed, from export support to submission of applications for contracts. A volume which is found in the “26,000 people welcomed” in person or by telephone last year and the 2,300 “contacts with companies, 21% linked to commercial development”without forgetting the support of 84 companies in difficulty.
