Barcelona Global: "If we want to excel, we have to work together"

The city is consolidating its position in attracting talent, one of Barcelona Global's founding objectives, but it still has pending issues, such as strengthening the university system, improving technology transfer, and achieving higher salaries. The association's general director, Mercè Conesa, points to strengthening alliances between the public and private sectors as a priority to attract more foreign professionals, but also to bring back locals who have had to leave due to lack of opportunities.

"In Catalonia, we have a tradition of public-private collaboration, especially in Barcelona. Fira de Barcelona clearly is, the Mobile and the America's Cup too," she stated in a new session of the cycle The New Barcelona – Moments Estel·lars, organized in collaboration with CASA SEAT, Must Media Group and Barcelona Global itself. "Let's give ourselves the opportunity to work more together and with greater trust," Conesa remarked, in a dialogue with investor Josep Lluís Sanfeliu, vice-president of Barcelona Global and president of Asabys Partners.

Precisely, Conesa cited Barcelona & Partners as an example, the investment agency created by Barcelona Global to attract investment, the association's second founding objective. "We are a private non-profit entity, while Barcelona & Partners is already a public-private collaboration project: the administrations are involved because they have seen the opportunity for projects to be brought in from the private sector," explained the general director.

One of these projects has been the America's Cup, the oldest competition in the world and one of the sporting events with the most significant economic and media impact, only behind the Olympic Games and football World Cups. The next edition will be held in Barcelona, in 2024, with an estimated economic impact of 1,000 million euros. "The most important thing now is to define what will happen after the America's Cup, what good there will be for Barceloneta, the Port of Barcelona, and the citizens," Sanfeliu stated.

In this regard, she has pointed out that the event can accelerate the energy transition of port terminals with their electrification, emphasizing the pollution caused by cruise ships in the city: "A project like the America's Cup can accelerate it by 10 years. Just as it happened with the Olympic Games, which served to improve the conditions and quality of life of Barcelona residents."

Moderated by journalist and UPF-BSM professor Toni Aira, Conesa and Sanfeliu have also specified the role Barcelona Global plays with administrations. "What we want is not to point a finger to say what they have to do, but to build together. We know that this way we go further," stressed the general director.

To do this, the association surveys those aspects that can affect the arrival of professionals and companies, often detected by the questionnaires they conduct among their thousand members, and proposes solutions. One of them was the difficulties foreign workers encounter in settling in the city, a shortcoming that resulted in the creation by the Barcelona City Council of the Barcelona International Welcome Desk, an office that functions as a one-stop shop for various administrative procedures and facilitates the reception process for people from other countries who come to the city.

Bureaucracy, Sanfeliu argues, is one of the brakes on the establishment of entrepreneurs, but so is the high price of housing in Barcelona. "In Catalonia, 10,000 homes are needed every year," Conesa warned, "it is very difficult to solve: neither the administration has the capacity to produce so many homes nor does the private sector, which also faces difficulties in procedures."

"If we want to excel, we have to work together," Conesa insisted. All this, without forgetting the need, according to Barcelona Global, to foster the economic strength of the Catalan capital, based on anchoring the city's companies to guarantee wealth redistribution. "The business friendly concept has already been discovered by many cities, and there are cities in the Spanish State that have gotten their act together. If Barcelona does not adequately adjust to attracting companies, without ceasing to take into account wealth redistribution and social justice, it may cease to be business friendly," he stressed.

Both have championed the role of Barcelona Global in ensuring that the Catalan capital "is one of the best cities in the world for attracting impact talent and investments" and have agreed that the city is already the digital talent capital of Southern Europe. According to Sanfeliu, Barcelona also stands out as the "European capital of gaming" and life sciences and has an opportunity to become a benchmark in the so-called blue or sea economy. Conesa also emphasized the importance of impact talent, which is that talent "that is not selfish, but gives back to society."