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Alstom to supply new trains for Lima Metro

September 2, 2016 11:24 AM | ACN

The new ‘Metropolis’ trains will be manufactured at the company factory in Santa Perpètua de Mogoda, in Barcelona. Alstom has signed a €200 million contract with Graña y Montero Ferrovías to supply 20 train sets (120 cars) for Line 1 of the Lima Metro, in Peru, and 19 additional new carriages to complete the existing train sets already in use on the line. The Catalan factory will design and manufacture the new carriages, which are inspired by the Barcelona Metro. With the new trains the Lima Metro will more than double its transportation capacity, from 20,000 passengers per hour to 48,000.

Catalonia registered the best February in 20 years in terms of unemployment

March 2, 2016 06:32 PM | ACN

This past February showed the biggest decrease in registered unemployment in Catalonia for 20 years with 7,843 fewer people unemployed than in January. According to official data from the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Security released this Wednesday, Catalonia led the decline in unemployment in Spain as a whole and has now accumulated 32 consecutive months of annual decreases. The services sector led the unemployment decrease, followed by industry and construction, whereas the agriculture sector added 522 people to the unemployment lists. While Catalonia was the Autonomous Community which registered the highest drop in unemployment in February, unemployment rose in Spain as a whole by 2,231 people and broke the positive trend registered each February for the last two years. 

Almost 900 homeless sleeping on Barcelona’s streets, according to the Fundació Arrels

May 27, 2015 09:17 PM | ACN

The Fundació Arrels (Arrels Foundation) – a Barcelona-based NGO dedicated to homeless people founded in 1987 – registered 892 persons sleeping on the streets of the Catalan capital on Wednesday night. More than 700 volunteers – in groups of three or four – combed the city divided up into 160 areas from midnight until 2 am. The initiative aimed at counting people sleeping on the streets: inside ATM lobbies, under bridges, on benches of public parks, in front of private entrances or nearby train stations. Barcelona's local Ombudsman service – an institution for the defence of rights and public liberties – also took part, through the presence of some of its staff among the volunteers. According to Maria Assumpció Vilà, Head of Barcelona's Ombudsman office, the reality certified by the Arrels Foundation is "absolutely unacceptable".  "An emergency plan must be launched urgently", she stressed, as the Catalan capital cannot accept having 900 people without a place to sleep.