Carlos Slim, this Wednesday after receiving the Enrique V. Iglesias Prize.JJ Guillén (EFE)
“We need a population capable of saving and consuming to strengthen the economy and well-being.” The Mexican businessman Carlos Slim pleaded this Wednesday after receiving the Enrique V. Iglesias Prize – awarded by the Alliance for Ibero-America Business Council (Ceapi) – for the fight against poverty “as the best possible alternative”. “We have to offer education and integrate it into the market [laboral] and to modernity,” he explained a few hours after accepting the award from Felipe VI. at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
The world – Slim slipped – is experiencing a civilizational shift and is entering a phase in which the service economy is the majority. “This requires that the population be educated and trained and free from marginalization and illiteracy,” he stressed to an audience full of Spanish and Latin American personalities. “The best example of this is China: no country in the world has a middle class of this size, today hundreds of thousands of Chinese are studying postgraduate degrees at the best universities in the world, and in many areas the country already has better technology.”
Slim, the president of Ceapi, Nuria Vilanova, has commented: “It is a different businessman and it shows in all the decisions he makes.” “What would have happened to Mexico in the pandemic without its hospital? “What would Latin America be like without its support for the Astra-Zeneca vaccine?” he asked rhetorically. “It was clear he had to be the winner.”
The Enrique V. Iglesias Prize recognizes the “contribution” of the eighth richest man in the world, president of the Carso group and largest shareholder of América Móvil, to the “economic and social development” of the Ibero-American community and to the “strengthening of relations between countries, of which it consists, as well as the “great social work” of his foundation, which bears his name. The jury’s decision was unanimous.
Slim is one of the largest businessmen in Latin America and Mexico and the first shareholder in the telecommunications company América Móvil and the Carso Group, with interests in sectors such as construction, finance and mining. In Spain, the Mexican businessman is the first shareholder of FCC and Realia. He is also a shareholder in PRISA, the publishing group of this newspaper.
“We started with eight employees [empleados] and now we have two hundred thousand in Mexico, Spain and all Latin American countries except Bolivia and Venezuela,” he recalled. “My father died when I was 13, but he left us several family principles and values: that the businessman is a temporary creator and manager of wealth; that we have a commitment and a social responsibility; that all times are good for those who know how to work; and the importance of sustained reinvestment: the money that leaves the company evaporates.”
Created in 2014, the Ceapi Prize is awarded each year to personalities from the Ibero-American economic or business sector who have made “relevant and exceptional” contributions to the development of countries in the region and to “promoting connections between nations”. through investment or trade promotion. Enrique V. Iglesias, after whom the award is named, is Honorary President of the Economic Council and was head of the American Development Bank (IDB) and the first Ibero-American Secretary General. Winners of previous editions include Mexican businessman Valentín Díez Morodo, Panamanian Stanley Motta (Copa Holdings), Spanish Ana Botín (Banco Santander) and Colombian Jaime Gilinski (owner of the eponymous group).
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