Madrid City Council launches Madrid Platform: a major international HUB linking Europe and Latin America

• The project was unveiled this morning at the Palacio de Cibeles and seeks to present Madrid as a business hub linking Europe and Latin America, as well as foster connection, reflection and the exchange of ideas at a time of social distancing.
• As sponsors, Madrid City Council sees the initiative as a key lever for economic reactivation in 2021. A major event is planned for May 2021 (using a mixed format: physical, semi-virtual and completely virtual)

Madrid, October 7, 2020.

The Deputy Mayor of Madrid City Council, Begoña Villacís, presented Madrid Platform this morning, at the city’s Palacio de Cibeles. She was joined by Miguel Ángel Redondo, who heads the city’s Economics, Innovation and Employment Department, and Carlos Morales, Director General of Madrid Platform and Chairman of mshglobal, an international consulting firm with a solid track record of more than 18 years in company internationalization processes. One of the chief goals of the forum is to make Madrid the Number One international hub for business between continents.

Madrid Platform is envisaged as a strategic bridge for business between Europe and Latin America and responds to the need to revolutionize the way of doing business as well as a way to enable companies to connect across borders. The COVID-19 crisis and changes in the current political landscape position Madrid as a natural hub as well as a perfectly placed physical and virtual meeting point for the Latin American business ecosystem. To further the Platform’s aims, the organization is preparing a mixed-format event (physical and virtual) for May 2021. The goal is to foster a conversation among experts and leading players around the main issues of interest on the global agenda and, specifically, aspects that directly affect Europe and Latin America. The project aims to explore opinions and ideas for the future of companies, institutions and society as a whole, as we embrace the so-called “new normal”. To this end, Madrid Platform seeks to establish itself as a platform for connection, reflective thinking and inquiry and for sharing ideas in a world of social distancing.

Miguel Ángel Redondo, from the city’s Economics, Innovation and Employment Department, stressed that projects such as Madrid Platform are key to combatting negative forecasts about international investment flows for 2020-2021. Meanwhile,  the capital’s Deputy Mayor explained that “we must become the best city in the world to work in” and that Madrid Platform is already part of the City Council’s reactivation strategy.

The Director of Madrid Platform, Carlos Morales, thanked the City Council and companies and institutions that support the project. These include a range of European chambers of commerce, the Euroamérica Foundation, the Metropoli Foundation, business associations, and promotion agencies from different Latin American countries. “We believe that Madrid meets all the requirements to be the meeting point for two continents: the American and the European. The city not only has infrastructure capacity but it also has the ambition to become an international player and boasts many unique assets – we are the only European capital with Spanish as its official language, and 1 in 4 citizens has ties to Latin America.”

The City Council, a sponsor of the project, sees the initiative as a key lever in its economic reactivation plan and is firmly committed to working together with Madrid Platform to promote economic recovery.

Further information at www.madridplatform.com

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