The Diplomat
Last Tuesday, the II Conference “Business and Internationalisation” was held at the Fundación Pons in Madrid, organised by Laura González Escallada, founder of Ni Hao España, with the collaboration of the Foundation, the magazine Atalayar, the CEU San Pablo University and The Diplomat in Spain.
The aim of this event was to strengthen business relations between Spain, China and Latin America, and in it, leading figures in Economics and Intellectual Property in the different cultures shared their reflections with the attendees, including the Ambassador of Argentina, Ricardo Alfonsín, together with representatives of the Cuban embassies (Alejandro Núñez and Yuniel García), and the Chargé d’Affaires of the Nicaraguan and Guatemalan delegations, Milagros Urbina and Carlos Medrano, together with businessmen and senior management of large corporations.
Speakers included Margaret Chen, honorary president of China Club Spain and recognised by the Chinese government as one of the 100 people with the greatest impact abroad; Professor Ricardo J. Palomo, professor of Financial Economics and dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies at the University of Valencia. Economics and Business Studies at the CEU San Pablo University, and Isabel Cortés, Head of International Legal Affairs PONS IP, were the protagonists of the conference.
Margaret Chen, founder and director of Optimus Horizon, highlighted that “China’s contribution to the world is sometimes not well understood. The Chinese economy continues to seek foreign investment, for example, in public works, but it is also very interested in buying all kinds of raw materials and food, such as soya or cereals in general”.
For Professor Ricardo J. Palomo, “China is much more than a country, it is a civilisation that has been hidden from the West for many years. It is only now that we are beginning to really get to know each other. For this reason, we need to get to know what China’s contributions to humanity have been, and Spanish and Latin American companies need to be able to take advantage of the current moment to continue doing business with China”.
Finally, Isabel Cortés stressed that “industrial and intellectual property plays a key role in world trade and investment, and countries have become aware of the importance of using their intangible assets to strengthen their competitiveness and their country brand image. The policies and strategy for the protection and defence of these rights have become key to the geopolitics of knowledge and, in this sense, it is worth highlighting China’s outstanding commitment to industrial property as an indispensable tool for the internationalisation of our companies.
