Casa África hosts the 8th meeting of PIC Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Casa África hosted this Tuesday, 18th February, the eighth meeting of Internationalisation Project of the City (PIC) of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Chaired by the City's Mayor, Juan José Cardona, and the president of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, José Miguel Bravo de Laguna, it was also attended by the Government Minister in the Canary Islands, María del Carmen Hernández Bento and the Casa África's Director General, Luis Padrón.

The PIC is made up from more than 40 institutions, associations and business organisations that are committed to the international projection of Gran Canaria and its capital, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, especially due to its potential as a tri-continental platform, both in logistics as well as business services to Western Africa.

Speaking to the media, the mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, one of the institutions that make up the Casa África Consortium, explained that a year after the launch of the PIC strategy, steps are being taken and decisions implemented to promote the desired objectives. Cardona reminded us that the newly created West Africa City Network (WACN with its acronym in English, and which together with the capital of Gran Canaria is made up from the cities of Praia, Casablanca, Agadir, Laayoune, Dakar and Nouakchott) has already begun work in the line of sharing Port-City experiences or improvement processes in the management of public services.

For his part, the Casa Africa's Director General Luis Padrón, told the media that currently there are three pieces of information that indicate this is a good time for relations between Spain and Africa. On the one hand, Spanish exports to the continent exceeded for the first time last year, exports to Latin America. Secondly, air connectivity has improved very significantly in a year thanks to new connections, especially from the Canary Island company Binter Canarias. Finally, and also in 2013, Padrón explained that Spanish companies have been placed as the third country that gain more tenders for works put out to tender by the African Development Bank, after France and Denmark.

Padron stressed Casa África's commitment not only in promoting the internationalisation of Spanish companies on the continent but also in supporting the search from the Canary Islands of international companies wishing to establish their base and expatriated staff on the Islands.