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uring the panel Barcelona, present and future, within the Barcelona New Economy Week (BNEW), Pere Navarro, special delegate of the state in the CZFB, has urged to promote public-private collaboration to analyze "what e-commerce means when planning the city" and how it could be integrated into the metropolis in a sustainable way, keeping shops open as a meeting place.
Although the Covid-19 crisis has served to increase the use of e-commerce, Diego Guri, deputy general director of the Association of Internationalized Industrial Companies (AMEC), has assured that it is still "an incipient commercial model." In fact, 86% of online purchases focus on services such as travel, leisure, or culture, while only 14% correspond to goods, and of these, the "immense majority" are related to fashion. Guri has assured that challenges such as continuous customer service or the international movement of merchandise still remain, which, especially small companies, cannot face.
Martín Gustavo Ibarra, president of the Colombian consultancy Araújo Ibarra, expressed himself along the same lines, stating that "in three years, a third of foreign trade will be online," so creating an "e-zone" that combines e-commerce services in the Free Trade Zone is a positive idea.
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In this way, SMEs will be able to count on a hub that integrates the different services they need to function as online businesses, from parcel delivery to the inclusion of a call center or distribution hand in hand with the port and airport of Barcelona. According to Navarro, the idea is to move towards digitalization that explores "new forms of production" and turns the Free Trade Zone into "a factory of opportunities."
Precisely, this large e-commerce center is one of the proposals called to occupy the space that Nissan will leave after its departure at the end of next year. There are several options on the table, all aimed at developing "a new economy based on technology and sustainability that leaves no one behind," as stated by Eva Menor, deputy for economic development, tourism, and trade of the Barcelona Provincial Council. Both she and Navarro have insisted on the importance of training young people in new professions that help guide Barcelona and the Free Trade Zone towards a new industrial present and future.