The Diplomat
Madrid will host this week the 13th edition of the Spain Investors Day Forum (SID), which will bring together fifty listed companies and will address “the health of the Spanish economy” in the current “context of uncertainty” marked by the war in Ukraine and its influence on the world economy.
The event, which will be held on January 11 and 12 at the Mandarin Oriental Ritz Hotel, will be inaugurated by the minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and will include, on the first day, a lunch-colloquium with the third vice-president and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera.
The second day will begin with a working breakfast with the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso; it will continue with a lunch-colloquium with the first vice-president and minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño; and will include a round table on strategic investments in Spain in which the secretary general for Economic Affairs and G20 in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government, Manuel de la Rocha, will participate.
As the organizers informed The Diplomat, the agenda is already closed and, therefore, the presence of King Philip VI (who presided over the event in January 2021) and of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is not foreseen in principle. In the previous edition, in January 2022, the same three ministers participated this year (Calviño, Ribera and Maroto) and the minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares.
Sectors of activity such as energy, finance, tourism, real estate, infrastructure and telecommunications, among others, will be represented at the event, which will be attended by 47 listed companies (mostly from the Ibex-35 and representatives of all sectors of activity in our country), representing an increase of 6.4% compared to the previous edition. “This behavior, sustained over time, confirms the growing interest of companies to expose their reality to major international investors, in a clear message of transparency and also of confidence in the future, despite the context of global uncertainty,” they said in a press release.
The participants (listed companies, global investors and authorities) will analyze the health of the Spanish economy and its capacity to generate confidence in order to consolidate the Spanish market as a pole of attraction for investors. To this end, the companies in attendance will present their reality and the challenges and opportunities they face. For their part, the Government’s economic team and the heads of organizations such as the Bank of Spain (headed by its governor, Pablo Hernández de Cos) and the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) will present their vision for the coming year and will outline their lines of action and priorities.
“This edition is especially relevant insofar as it is being held in a geopolitical context impacted by the war in Ukraine and by the trajectory of macroeconomic variables such as inflation”, two “determining factors in the evolution of the world economy”, the organizers highlighted. Therefore, “there is consensus on the need to generate a climate of security and certainty in the Spanish market, which is already on the radar of international investors, for which they estimate great dynamism next year”.
In the opinion of the president of SID, Benito Berceruelo, “the current geopolitical context makes it necessary to send a resounding message of confidence in our country; Spanish companies and the Government must explain to investors who are betting on the country what the situation is and what the plans are for the coming year. You only invest in what you know and trust”.
Spain Investors Day is a company of the Estudio de Comunicación group, whose strategic partners are BNP Paribas, European leader in financial services, and Exane BNP Paribas, one of the main intermediaries in European equities. The Forum is sponsored by international firms such as Grant Thornton, Endesa, Deloitte, Cecabank, PRISA, AON and BME, and with the support, among others, of the public entities ICEX-Invest in Spain, ICO and COFIDES.
