The diaspora of Spanish professionals and their contribution to the internationalization of the Spanish economy

The past 28th of November, Leading Brands of Spain Forum, in collaboration with the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, Marca España and the Embassy of Spain in Belgium, organized in Brussels a meeting called “The diaspora of Spanish professionals and their contribution to the internationalization of the Spanish economy”. A diverse group of Spanish professionals established in the Belgian capital participated in this initiative, which aimed to debate about the asset that the Spanish professionals who are living abroad represented for the internationalization of the economy and the Spanish companies.

After the welcome words by Cecilia Yuste Rojas, Ambassador of Spain in Belgium, and José Luis Bonet, President of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum, the General Manager of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum and moderator of the event, Miguel Otero, introduced the subject and the speakers.

Right after, Enrique Fanjul, member of the Scientific Council of Elcano Royal Institute, took the floor. During his intervention, Fanjul explained that over the past few years, the number of Spanish professional established abroad had increased considerably. These professionals work in Spanish companies, in multinationals, in public organizations of the countries where they are, and in international organizations. He argued that it is necessary to make an effort and establish mechanisms to take advantage of this asset of great value.

Afterwards, some success stories about professional networks abroad were presented.

The first success story was done by Wim den Tuinder, Director of IESE Alumni Association & Institutional Development. During his intervention, Wim explained the expansion process of its alumni network and the different programs of development and expansion that are carried out from IESE.

The next success story was presented by Nicolás García, Director of the “Liga Global Network”. During his intervention, Nicolás talked about the strategy and the goals that are pursued through this initiative, which seeks to consolidate the positioning of LaLiga worldwide.

Then, Juan Rodríguez-Villa, president of the Federation of Spanish Chambers of Commerce in Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania (FEDECOM), described the importance of FEDECOM to create relations between Spain and other the countries around the world

Finally, a debate took place about the subject matter in which all the attendees could participate. Among the most important subjects, they discussed about the role of women in the business world, the emigration of the young Spanish talent and the role of the Spanish companies in the process of the internationalization of ‘Marca España’.

Gala Dinner & Awards Ceremony 2017

The Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organized, last 27th November at the Hotel Le Plaza, their yearly Gala Dinner. The Embassy of Spain in Belgium, the Leading Brands of Spain Forum, Marca España and the Spanish Office for Patents and Brands (OEPM), collaborated specially on the event organization. During the dinner, the awards “Friends of Marca España” and “Friends of the Spanish Brands” were given. These awards aim to publicly acknowledge certain Belgian people, companies and institutions for their outstanding support and collaboration with Spain and/or Spanish brands within each of their respective professional spheres. This is the ninth edition of the awards and the first in Belgium, with previous ceremonies having taken place in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Moscow, London, Miami, Tokyo, Dubai, and Mexico.

After a welcome cocktail where the participants were delighted with cava offered by Freixenet, Institutional Wines D.O. Ca Rioja, Estrella Galicia beer, ibérico de bellota ham offered by the Regional Government of Extremadura and an appetizer elaborated by Marcos Morán, Gastronomic Director of the Restaurant Hispania Brussels, the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony started.

First, Juan Rodríguez-Villa, President of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg took the stand. During his speech, he welcomed all the attendees to the Gala Dinner, went over all the activities that took place at the Chamber on 2017 and congratulated all the awardees of the night.

Afterwards, the masters of ceremonies, Sergi Ferré and Laura Martínez, Cultural and Political Counselors respectively, at the Spanish Embassy in Belgium, gave the word to José Luis Bonet, president of the Leading Brands of Spain Forum. During his speech, Bonet highlighted the important role of the Chambers of Commerce abroad, as well as the Friends of the Marca España and Friends of the Spanish Brands’, to make them stronger and more competitive internationally.

After the projection of a video-presentation about the Spanish Brands, the masters of ceremonies introduced the awards ceremony “Friends of the Spanish Brands in Belgium”. Several Spanish Brands, aim to recognize the hard work of Belgian citizens to internationalize and expand these brands in Belgium, through this award. The awardees were:

  • JEAN PIERRE PIRET as Friend of the Brand FERMAX in Belgium
  • LOUIS CULOT KEUKENWERKBLADEN as Friend of the Brand COSENTINO in Belgium.
  • ERIC LE PAIGE as Friend of the Brand ANDREU WORLD in Belgium.
  • JEAN-LUC MURI as Friend of the Brand LLADRÓ in Belgium.
  • KEEP IT QUIET as Friend of the Brand FREIXENET in Belgium.

After the awards ceremony, the attendees enjoyed a gourmet Spanish menu elaborated by Marcos Morán, who owns a Michelin Star and has been recognized with the National Gastronomy Award.

After the dinner, the Ambassador of Spain in Belgium, Cecilia Yuste Rojas, took the stand to congratulate the initiative of awarding the people who help to create closer ties between Spain and Belgium. Then, after the video presentation of Marca España, the masters of ceremonies presented the second awards ceremony “Friends of the Marca España” in Belgium. The awardees were:

  • Award to JAN DE CLERCK as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium, for being a pioneer of foreign tourism for the entire coast of Cádiz. He is currently Chairman of the hotel group Hoteles Andaluces Con Encanto (HACE) in the province of Cádiz.
  • Award to NICHETTE GHYOOT as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium. General Director of the tour operator Transeurope she collaborates with Spain’s Department of Tourism in the organization of activities with travel agencies, showcasing different destinations in Spain, such as Andalusia, Galicia, the Basque Country, and the Canary Islands.
  • Collective award to HISPANISTAS EN BÉLGICA as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium. The acknowledge of all Spanish language and literature professors from seven Belgian universities that have academic chairs dedicated to these subjects is recognized.
  • Award to ROLAND CRACCO as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium. CEO of the Belgian company INTERPARKING, one of the leading European groups with over 350,000 parking spaces. He loves Spain, its culture and its geography. Spain is one of the countries where INTERPARKING has invested the most, and the goal is to continue expanding throughout the country.
  • Award to CARMEN VAN DEN BOSSCHE as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium. She manages Caractère, a tour operator specializing in charming hotels and experiences that is looking to Spain for the launch of new products targeted at segments and destinations that play a part in achieving the objectives set by Spain’s tourism policy.
  • Award to OMMEGANG as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium.
  • Award to BERT DEHANDSCHUTTER as Friend of the Marca España in Belgium. He is a partner at Belgian law firm Racine. He is currently considered one of the most sought after lawyers for Spanish companies trading in Belgium.

After the awards ceremony, Bert Dehandschutter, in the name of all the awarded of the night, showed his appreciation for the awards given by Marca España and by the by the Spanish Brands for their relationship with Spain, both in the cultural and economic aspects.

Finally, Carlos Espinosa de los Monteros, High Commissioner for the Marca España closed the event by thanking  the Friends of the Marca España and Friends of the Spanish Brands their hard work for internationalize the Spanish Brands.

The Chamber thanks all the attendees their presence, and the Embassy of Spain in Belgium, the Leading Brands of Spain Forum, Marca España and the Spanish Office of Brands and Patents their collaboration in the organization of the event. Furthermore, we appreciate the collaboration of the sponsor companies and institutions: Freixenet, D.O.Ca Rioja, Estrella Galicia, Hispania Brussels, Quality Media Producciones, Junta de Extremadura, Indra and Santander Consumer Bank.   

   We invite you to watch the video of the event

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The Chamber, local contact point for the Erasmus Young Entrepreneurs

During three months, our member Jorge Cisneros, from Swan Consulting SCS, has taken part of the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Program as host entrepreneur for Razvan Rusu, a young entrepreneur who develops his own business idea in Romania, his home country.

The program allows, on one hand, Razvan to learn from a more experienced entrepreneur, and on the other hand, Jorge to count on a person who collaborates with him every day. As an example of their work together, last 16 and 17 of November they organized at the headquarters of the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, a workshop on EU Funding and Project Management.

Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is a free program of transnational exchanges, for which the Chamber is the local contact point in Belgium and Luxembourg.

For any further information: erasmus4youngentrepreneurs@e-camara.com.

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Companies and institutions from Navarra present in Brussels their activity in the biomedicine sector

The past 21st November 2017, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organized in Brussels, in collaboration with the Delegation of the Government of Navarra and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Navarra, a conference at the Hotel Sofitel Brussels about the business opportunities for collaboration in the biomedicine sector between Navarra and Belgium. During the conference numerous presentations from different representatives of universities, companies and institutions, both from Navarra and Belgium, took place.

Bert Dehandschutter, member of the Board of Directors at the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, and Manuel Ayerdi, Vice-president for Economic Development of the Government of Navarra, both said a welcome word.

Afterwards, Kathleen D’Hont, policy officer at the Government of Flanders, presented the biomedical sector in this region, highlighting the universities and active companies on this field, and the specialization of different Flemish organizations on this area.

On the other hand, Izaskun Goñi, Director General of Economy Policy at the Government of Navarra, explained the currently existing development areas in Navarra, focusing on health sector. She also presented the “International Plan of Navarra” which aims to increase, by 2020, the exports and the internationalization, as well as the companies from Navarra that usually export, specially to Belgium, but also to France, United Kingdom and Germany.

After that, Henk Joos, Managing Director at Flanders Bio, presented the organization, which is composed by life sciences clusters, and has its headquarters in Flanders. It counts on more than 355 members from 3 different regions in Belgium, and also from adjacent countries, such as the Netherlands. During his presentation, he underlined that Belgium manages the 18% of the European capital in biotechnology, highlighting that the reasons for this success are related to its excellency, the strong funding, the experience and its geographic location in Europe. It is convenient to point out the big concentration of biopharmaceutical institutions and companies existing in Belgium (Janssen Pharmaceutica, Pfizer, GSK vaccines, UCB, Roche Diagnostics, Novartis, Sanofi, Baxter, among others).

Elke Smits, Professor at the Antwerp University Hospital, attended as representative both from this University and from Flanders Bio. She explained the approach of biomedicine in Flanders, showing how the Research Center at the Antwerp Clinic operates, and emphasizing the importance of the correct use of data in order to achieve significant progresses.

She also mentioned the Biobanking and BioMolecular Resources Research Infrastructure, BBMRI, an organization which aims to create and maintain an infrastructure of Belgian biobank.

Begoña Vicente, Head of Business Development at Research Institutes, attended as a representative of the Public university of Navarra (UPNA), presenting the bachelor and masters degrees existing there, highlighting the ones taught in English in their totality, as well as the research activity that makes them outstand as an education center.

Elías Rodriguez-Toral, Director of the Research Management Department at CIMA (Centro de Investigación Médica Aplicada), presented how CIMA works and orientates its activities to the research of new diagnosis and therapeutic products, working together with pharmaceutical companies and other institutions.

Isabel Gil, Scientific Coordinator of NavarraBiomed Biobank and Clara Gahigiro, European Funding Project Manager at the same company, spoke about the Biomedical Research Centre of the Government of Navarra, highlighting the support and collaboration projects at the Spanish biobank network. It takes part of the Spanish Biobank network, an initiative from the Health Center Carlos III, which counts on 52 biobanks.

For her part, Ana Cañada, International Trade Manager at the Navarre Chamber of Commerce and Industry, explained briefly which are the main biomedicine companies in Navarra and the main objectives of each one of them (Cinfa, Palobiofarma, Albyn medical, 3pbiopharmaceuticals, geiser pharma, Lozy’s, Ojer Pharma, Tedcas, Pharmamodelling, making genetics, Innoup farma, eversens, movalsys).

Gert Verreth, Communication Advisor at Essenscia (Belgian Federation of Chemical Industries and for the Life Sciences), emphasized the fact that Belgium is on the world top 10 for pharmaceutical innovation, and the fact that 5 of the 100 essential medicines existing in the world, have been developed in Belgian labs. Thus, after presenting the key Belgian companies for this achievement, he explained the reasons why Belgium is a key country related to bio pharmacy: it is a unique academic and industrial network, it has a strong focus on the innovative research, a highly qualified and productive work power, and it is very well located and provided with excellent logistics infrastructure.

Afterwards, the companies from Navarra attending to the event were introduced. Javier Arnáez, representative of Idifarma, Francisco Fernández representative of Adacen, María Llorente Business Development Manager at Bionanoplus, and lastly, Iranzu Lamberto as Chief Operating Officer at IKan Biotech, did different presentations on behalf of their companies.

Finally, with the aim of turning this event into a productive meeting for both companies and organizations, and in order to create new business relationships, a matchmaking, consisting of B2B meetings between the companies and institutions took place after the presentations

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Success on the second edition of the workshop “EU Funding – Project Management”

Last 15th and 16th of November, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, in collaboration with Swan Consulting, organized the second edition of the workshop “Development and Management of EU projects”, run by Jorge Cisneros, consultant on EU affairs.

The course during this second edition, reached full capacity, as in the first one. During both days the attendees learned about the opportunities of the European financing through the EU programs, as the participation and management process. Furthermore, the speaker explained how to identify calls, elaborate proposals, and carry out the management of the approved projects.

Cisneros encouraged the interaction among the participants, who expressed their doubts, opinions and experiences with the European projects. This led to networking as well as some potential collaborations.