Albacete was the place chosen to hold the last meeting of the year of the Interterritorial Council on Internationalization (CII), taking over the baton from Asturias.
The Government of Castilla-La Mancha, through the Ministry of Economy, Business and Employment and the Institute for Foreign Promotion of Castilla-La Mancha (IPEX), has chaired this Friday the biannual meeting of the Interterritorial Council of Internationalization (CII), an essential forum for collaboration, in which the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Enterprise, the regional administrations, CEOE and Chamber of Commerce of Spain are represented.
The Minister of Economy, Business and Employment of Castilla-La Mancha, Patricia Franco, and the CEO of ICEX Spain Export and Investment, Elisa Carbonell, opened the plenary session of the IIC that took place at the Palacio de Congresos de Albacete.
Attendees at the Inter-territorial Council on Internationalization in Albacete
During her speech, Patricia Franco highlighted that the foreign opening of the economy of Castilla-La Mancha has grown by 19 points in the last decade, and the stock of international investment already represents 16 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the region, which places the autonomous community as the second with the second highest weight of foreign investment in the whole of its GDP in the whole country.
She also wanted to highlight the role of IPEX as a reference in internationalization in Castilla-La Mancha, which is already 22 years old and which coincides with the record of exports of the companies of the region in the first nine months of the year, exceeding 7,810 million euros.
In addition, in terms of attracting investment, over the last decade we have been able to attract 295 international investment and reinvestment projects in our region, being also the fifth autonomous community in attracting greenfield projects and the second autonomous community with the highest weight of the fixed stock of international investment according to our GDP, with 16 percent.
The inauguration was followed by the round table ‘Europe facing the challenge of coming of age: European competitiveness in the current geopolitical context’, which was moderated by the Director General of Companies, Javier Rosell, with the participation of distinguished speakers: Susana del Río Villar, Director of the cycle “Challenges for the new European legislature 2024-2029”, Miguel Otero, Senior Researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute and José Luis Kaiser, Deputy Director General for Trade Strategy and Economic Security of the Secretary of State for Trade.
After the plenary session, the attendees were divided into two groups to address the meeting of the different Technical Committees: on the one hand, the one for foreign promotion and, on the other hand, the one for investment attraction.
Undoubtedly, the event was a great forum for collaboration between different administrations where interesting strategies were discussed to improve the international competitiveness of Spanish companies and attract investment in a challenging geopolitical context.
Castilla-La Mancha has taken over the presidency of the Interterritorial Council of Internationalization in this second semester of Asturias, after the last council in the region was held in Toledo in 2016, and cedes it to Galicia for the first semester of 2025.