CUNEF Universidad and Madrid City Council organise a conference on attracting foreign investment

Last July 3, CUNEF Universidad hosted a session on “Attracting investment within Madrid City Council’s internationalisation strategy”. Participants included leaders of corporations and national and international institutions, as well as the City Council itself. The event was opened by José Herrera, Director General of International Relations of the Madrid City Council, and featured two round tables that discussed the factors that determine foreign investment in Madrid and the opinion of investors.

The speakers stressed that Madrid City Council’s internationalisation strategy should revolve around four essential aspects:

• Standard of living and languages: Madrid’s way of life is an important asset for foreign companies, but the city must pay attention to the language issue to attract organisations from all over the world.
• Talent attraction: this aspect is closely related to standard of living, housing, legal security, health and education.
• Digitalisation and mobility: digitalisation has greatly increased global competition, leading to the need for a more dynamic and flexible environment to attract companies, talent and investment to the city of Madrid.
• Legal security: the predictability of the legal framework and the environment are relevant issues not only for Madrid and Spain, but for all of Europe. Regulation is necessary, but it must be simplified, avoiding hyper-regulation.

Likewise, the speakers and participants proposed several solutions that could contribute to the city’s internationalisation strategy:

• Enhancing public-private collaborations between companies and the public sector, and promoting greater involvement of other institutions, such as universities. The circle must be more comprehensive and all-encompassing.
• Investing in infrastructure, both physical and digital, without forgetting to maintain existing infrastructure.
• Incentivising investment through tax measures and subsidies.

The first round-table discussion, “Determining factors of foreign investment in Madrid”, featured Óscar Romera, General Coordinator of Economy, Trade and Consumer Affairs of Madrid City Council; Javier Pérez, Director of the International Economics and Euro Area Department of Banco de España; Elena Pisonero, CEO of Taldig; and Juan José de Lucio, Professor of Economics at Universidad de Alcalá. It was chaired by Manuel Balmaseda, Director of the Spanish Banking and Finance Institute. The second round-table discussion, “Investors’ views”, featured Paula Alicia Ferrari, co-founder and CEO of Go Global Consulting Group, Álvaro Rezola, founder and CEO of Wixdom, and Eric Ollinger, Chairman of Value Tree. It was chaired by Miguel Almunia, Director of the Department of Economics at CUNEF Universidad.