Josep Piqué, at the closing event of the IMF report: Economic Outlook-The Americas

Josep Piqué, CEO and Vice-Chairman of OHL, has participated in the closing event of the course entitled Outlook and challenges for Latin America’s economic policy further to the presentation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Economic Outlook-The Americas report, held in Madrid on 17 November. The closing event was attended, among others, by Rebeca Grynspan, General Secretary for Latin America, and Guillermo de la Dehesa, Vice Chairman of Grupo Santander and president of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).

The event, inaugurated by Íñigo Fernández de Mesa, State Secretary for Economics and Corporate Support, also attended by Alejandro Werner, head of the IMF Western Hemisphere department, and the manager of the Ramón Areces Foundation, Raimundo Pérez-Hernández, was structured into three courses: Economic outlook for Latin America, Global financial conditions and monetary independence in Latin America, and Latin America: outlook and political challenges.

In his speech, OHL’s CEO presented a view of regional infrastructures and how they have helped encourage competitiveness and productivity. Thus, he pointed out that “in order for a region to move forward infrastructure development needs to be promoted”. He highlighted that “better infrastructures provide territorial structure and backbone, facilitating the movement of persons and merchandise and reducing transportation costs”.

Josep Piqué stressed the need to promote collaboration between the public and private sectors and, given current budgetary restrictions, referred to public-private ventures (PPP) and private investment initiatives (IP); the latter are currently being executed in Peru and Chile, in transport infrastructure matters. Furthermore, he recalled that in order to start up this type of activity it is essential for countries to have stable macroeconomic policies and a secure legal framework.

As regards OHL’s presence in the region, the CEO mentioned that the Group is focusing its activity on four home markets -Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile- where it is currently developing large infrastructure projects.

 

Josep Piqué, CEO and Vice-Chairman of the OHL Group.