The Diplomat
The Business Council Alliance for Ibero-America (CEAPI) will hold in Madrid, between May 30 and June 1, the sixth edition of its Business Congress, under the title Spain, the bridge between Ibero-America and Europe. The time is now: the great opportunity.
The event will bring together more than 300 presidents of leading companies and business families from Ibero-America and Spain and institutional leaders from the entire Ibero-American Community, who will focus on business relations between Latin America and the European Union, on the occasion of the Spanish Presidency of the EU during the second half of 2023.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will close the meeting. Also in attendance will be Andrés Allamand, Secretary General of SEGIB; José María Aznar, former President of the Government of Spain; Ana Pastor, Second Vice-President of the Congress of Deputies; Mariano Jabonero, Secretary General of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI); Enrique V. Iglesias, honorary president of CEAPIM; Leire Pajín, president of the EU-LAC Foundation; José Luis Bonet, president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce; and Cani Fernández Vicién, president of the National Commission of Markets and Competition, among others. Luis Felipe Quintero, Vice Minister of Foreign Trade of Colombia, will also speak on the last day of the event.
“After the success of the fifth edition of the congress, held in the Dominican Republic and the first in the history of the association held in Latin America, this meeting of business leaders returns to Spain,” CEAPI said in a press release. “The central importance of the business sector in strengthening ties between Latin American countries and the European Union, as well as Spain’s role as a bridge between the two regions, will be central to the event,” it continued.
The VI Business Congress, which will be held at the Reina Sofia Museum Auditorium in Madrid, will bring together leading business and decision-makers from Latin America and Spain, as well as numerous institutional officials from the Ibero-American Community, and will take the form of plenary conferences and parallel working sessions.
The event will begin with an opening dinner on the evening of May 30 at the Teatro Real and will continue on May 31 and June 1 with panel discussions. Panels will examine the future scenarios facing Ibero-America, as well as EU-Latin America relations, the importance of closing Latin America’s infrastructure gap, the relationship between raw materials and security, the future of family businesses, the energy transition, the idea that inequality is not profitable and investment as a driver of change. The Congress will also reflect on business and politics, soccer and social impact, innovation and Artificial Intelligence.
The event, in the words of the president of CEAPI, Núria Vilanova, “seeks to provide certainty in these times of global uncertainty, and to provide support from the private sector to forge a stronger and long-term link between Europe and Latin America”. “At CEAPI we believe that public-private collaboration is the key to positioning the Ibero-American region as a key player in the new geopolitical landscape,” she added.
