Businesses need governments to grow. And vice versa. Public-private partnerships for business were the protagonists of the XIV Ibero-American Business Meeting taking place this week in Santo Domingo to kick off the Ibero-American Summit. Around 1,500 business people from Latin America, Spain and Portugal met in the Dominican capital to share their experiences as investors in some of the 22 member countries of the Ibero-American community.
The meeting point between all of them was a complicated global panorama – accelerated inflation and trade difficulties due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which in recent months has reduced the implementation of new investments or the growth of already existing investments. Antonio Garamendi, President of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (COE), opening the meeting, commented that alliances between businesses and governments play “a crucial role” in the growth of both sectors in the face of uncertainty. “We attach great importance to putting companies, and thus the people who work for them, at the center of decisions for the future of Latin America,” he assured.
Garamendi has indicated that once there is regulatory stability and the defense of private sector freedom, companies are ready to engage in a joint effort with states. “Ibero-America needs its businessmen to clean up the ghost of the lost decade,” added Andrés Allamand, Ibero-American Secretary General, in the same opening act of the meeting. For the former Chilean foreign minister, public-private alliances must be a “coordinated and powerful” measure to achieve sustainable growth of companies and countries.
The scenario Allamand has outlined for entrepreneurs for the future is based on economic growth sustained by environmental sustainability, but where investments are made in politically inclusive environments and with socially sustainable policies. The former secretary of state emphasized that companies will be busy fighting inequality and growing the Latin American middle class. “We need companies that pay their workers the maximum, not the minimum,” he said.
Allamand has estimated that entrepreneurs need to pay attention to three factors to guarantee their growth in the future: the gender gap, the digital revolution with its new tools and the energy transition towards renewable energies. The Ibero-American minister has insisted that both governments and investors must work together to move countries’ economies forward. He has pointed out that it is “absurd” for their differences to hamper the development of their residents, when both sectors strive for “equitable and inclusive growth that leaves absolutely no one behind”.
The Vice President of the Dominican Republic, Raquel Peña, set the example of her country in terms of collaboration between the public and private sectors to contribute to the country’s development. Peña has assured that these alliances have given a boost to the Caribbean country after the Covid-19 pandemic, mainly for the tourism industry. “It is extremely necessary that international financial structures are evaluated in order to achieve a post-pandemic recovery,” urged the Dominican vice president. The business meetings will continue until Friday with the presentation of the Ibero-American Quality Award and a discussion with the heads of state of the countries that are part of the Ibero-American Summit.