The President of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, José Luis Bonet, held in Paris his first official ceremony abroad

bonet3The conference, entitled “The internationalization of the Spanish company: Freixenet, Fira de Barcelona and Spanish Chamber”, was the first official ceremony as President of the Chamber of Commerce, in one of the Spanish chambers of commerce abroad since he became president on November 19, 2014.
The Lunch Conference, attended by the Ambassador of Spain in France, Don Ramón de Miguel, as well as representatives of the Spanish Chambers of Commerce in Benelux, Hong Kong and the president of FEDECOM (Federación de Cámaras de Comercio Españolas en el extranjero), had a large influx of attendees, most business representatives foster international relations, in particular between Spain and France.Bonet, in his speech, made a great emphasis on the current recovery Spain, the importance of international relations and export as well as the leading role in Europe. Specifically, he closed  with a summary: Talent, Labour and Determination and in one word; “optimism”.

“I think we can be optimistic about the possibility that Spain took again another quantitative and qualitative leap, to the surprise of many over the past 50 years. With this perspective we will work in the Spanish cameral system that has always been at the service of the country. ”

bonet2The new President of the Spanish Chamber, who represents 88 Chambers of Commerce in Spain and 38 Spanish Chambers abroad, summarized in three main objectives, points to be addressed by the Chamber; “1- The representation, promotion and protection of the general interests of commerce; the industry, the services and the navigation, in other words the general interests of the company, 2- The internationalization of companies and 3- the competitiveness of companies.”

Joseph Michel Garcia, President of the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in France, opened the event with a speech in which he emphasized the strength of the Chambers abroad as interlocutors of the exporting companies and invited to strengthen ties between the Spanish chambers of commerce abroad and in particular to reinforce relations between the Spanish chambers of commerce abroad.

 

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Luncheon-Debate with Margrethe Vestager, Commissionner for Competition: Anti-trust in digital markets

Margrethe Vestager, Commissionner for Competition, was the special guest on last Tuesday 12 May at the luncheon-debate organized by the “Business Circle” of the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg. More than 85 attendees, representatives of the Spanish public institutions, directors of international companies and lobbies from the sector were present.

vestagerJuan Rodríguez-Villa Matons, president of the Chamber was in charge of the introduction of the European Commissionner for Competition, by emphasizing her well-known professional career after getting her degree in Economics.

Later, the Commissionner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager began her intervention about the themes such as cross border e-commerce, Google, reinforcement of competition law and protection of personal data.

vestager3According to Margrethe Vestager, Europe has innovative ideas that need to be implemented in order to guarantee economic growth, success and job creation. Therefore, she highlighted the importance of an in-depth-investigation to develop a new digital marketing strategy and a defragmentation of the communications in Europe. For this reason, she called for cooperation and equal treatment of companies, enhancing the importance to spread this message to the other member states in order to make them understand the problematic situation and make them respond to this challenge.

During question time, it had been proved to be of fundamental importance that the 28 member countries should work together for the benefit of the consumers and companies in order to avoid a monopoly in certain markets.

To conclude the debate, Juan Rodríguez-Villa, on behalf of the Official Chamber of Commerce, and José María Álvarez Pallete, Chief Operating Officer of Telefónica, gave a prize to Margrethe Vestager in recognition of her work within the department of Competition.

Finally, José María Álvarez Pallete spoke, while drawing the attention to the new opportunities, in the form of product or service that the sector of telecommunications nowadays offers.

The Chamber celebrates the success of the luncheon-debate and would like to thank the cooperation of Telefónica, sponsor and a reference company in the technological and digital sector, and to La Buena Vida, sponsor of the wine at the event.

 

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The Chamber starts its Twitter account

After the renovation of the LinkedIn profile a few weeks ago, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg is being present on social networks launching its Twitter account.

The Chamber will inform about its upcoming activities and economic latest news, facilitating a faster, direct and simple interactivity with its partners.