Jaume Collboni, mayor of Barcelona, opened the inaugural European/Latin American AV Summit in style by pointing out that the city once described by writer Gabriel García Márquez as “bella, lunàtica e indescifrable” (beautiful, moody and inscrutable) is home to 70% of Spain’s tech companies, including Cisco, Microsoft and Intel, and the summit is an important step for the city.
Roger Torrent (pictured), minister of business and labour for the government of Catalonia, noted that the synergy between Europe and LATAM is growing and Catalonia is uniquely poised to take on the challenge of strengthening existing bonds.
“We are in a great position, exports from Catalonia to LATAM have risen by 40% last year, a growing number of Catalan companies have established in LATAM; our region hosts more than 100 LATAM companies,” he said.
“We boast a highly innovative AV industry made up of 4,000 companies, one of the strongest in Europe. We are the 10th region in the world in terms of attracting foreign direct investment in the AV field.”
In 2023, global pro-AV spending was just over $300 billion, according to Sean Wargo, VP of market intelligence for AVIXA. “APAC has been a huge driver of growth for our industry, lots of macro-economic expansion,” he said.
“Pro-AV is a strong component of economies. Without fail pro-AV exceeds the expected growth of GDP in those areas, becoming an increasing part of their economy. So for South America, a 2.1% GDP growth rate is expected for 2024, and 6.9% is expected for pro AV. This is a strong story for what we represent at this summit and the opportunities in this part of the world.”
The summit continues today from 10:30 in CC4.1.
