The accredited consular body in Barcelona participated in this inauguration, organized by the Barcelona City Council and 22@Barcelona, in order to attract innovative international companies in the Media, ICT, Energy, Biotech and Design sectors.

Barcelona, May 26 2008.- The deputy mayor in charge of Finance and Economic Promotion and President of 22@Barcelona, Jordi William Carnes, and the managing director of 22@Barcelona, Josep Miquel Piqué, presided over the event to lay the first symbolic stone for the “Innovation Airport”. The main accredited consulates in Barcelona, headed by the dean of the consular body and Consul General of Mexico, Jaime García Amaral, represented the international community at the event.

The “Innovation Airport” is a 22@Barcelona project that aims to make the innovation district “a landing platform for innovative international companies from the five important clusters in this zone: Media, Information and Communication Technologies, Biotech, Energy and Design,” Jordi William Carnes noted.

The idea is for 22@Barcelona to become a place where “born global companies” created in Barcelona can take off and discover how to grow and connect on an international level. “This way, here at 22@Barcelona, we are opening a line of communication with the world in order to attract, create and retain talent by becoming an innovation airport”, affirmed the managing director of 22@Barcelona.

During the event, the consuls from a number of countries around the world, like Bulgaria, Ecuador, Haiti, Malaysia, Guatemala, Colombia, Mauritius, Mexico, Finland, Netherlands, Ukraine and Brazil among others, also took a tour of the recent improvements to the 22@Barcelona district in infrastructure and urban-planning as well as in economic, university and social activities.

The visit began at the Imagina Audiovisual Center where the 22@Barcelona project was introduced. After that, the international representatives got a first hand look at the various areas where the five 22@Barcelona clusters are being developed. They visited the Barcelona Media Park, which is the center of the Media and ICT clusters, with the future presence of the Media-TIC building, and the headquarters of Indra, Spanish Radio National, the Audiovisual Council of Catalonia, the Vila Casas Foundation and the Pompeu Fabra University.

The consular representatives then visited Diagonal Avenue from Glòries to the Fòrum area, where they saw Central Park, designed by architect Jean Nouvel, where the future headquarters of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce will be located.

Finally, they visited the Energy and Biotech clusters in the Fòrum area, where the future Besòs Campus, sponsored by b_TEC, will be located. Also located in this area are the headquarters of Sanofi Aventis, Telemedicine Clinic and ”Fusion for Energy”, which manages the ITER project, among others.