Cádiz Brings the Americas’ Free Zones Back Together After 24 Years

FTZ News: Cádiz is hosting a free-zone meeting it last held in 2002. The 29th Ibero-American Free Zones Conference runs Oct. 26–28. The line on the program is “The ocean that unites us. The conversations that will mark the future.” Juan Verde, who heads the Advanced Leadership Foundation, is the lead speaker.

According to Cadena SER, in a Radio Cádiz report by Carlos Javier Alarcón Castellano on Oct. 5, the Cádiz free zone is putting the meeting on with the Association of Free Zones of the Americas. Fran González, the Spanish state’s special delegate at the Cádiz zone, said the point is to get experienced people with different records in one room to talk about where free zones are and where they are going. He said he wants more than a swap of notes. He wants deals and joint work on both sides of the Atlantic.

The card is long. Marc Canal, a senior fellow at the McKinsey Global Institute, is on it. So is Paul E. Kent, on ports and logistics, and Natalia Bayona, executive director of UN Tourism. María Camila Moreno, an OECD trade-policy analyst and a former AZFA executive director, is listed, with Piotr Stryszowski, a senior OECD economist. Guillermo Valles, a career diplomat, former World Trade Organization ambassador and former UNCTAD director, is on it too.

AZFA’s own names are Claudia Pellerano, president of the Las Américas industrial free zone; Carlos Wong, first vice president and head of Code Development Group; Juan Opertti, second vice president, from Uruguay’s free-zone chamber; and Julio Rodríguez, executive director. Spanish zone officials include Pere Navarro from Barcelona, Andrea Serrano from Santander, David Regades from Vigo, Carmen Tovar from Seville and Gabriel Corujo from Gran Canaria. Gustavo González de Vega, vice counselor for economy and internationalization in the Canary Islands government, is named.

Also listed are Matías Fernández Ilarde of the Ibero-American young entrepreneurs’ federation, Narciso Casado of the Ibero-American business council, Javier Collado of the INCYDE foundation, and Alicia Montalvo and Lina Mondragón of the development bank for Latin America and the Caribbean. Casimiro Mantell, rector of the University of Cádiz, and Pablo Vera Salazar, rector of the University of Magdalena, are on the academic side.

The program has keynote talks, an AZFA members’ assembly and a panel on free zones as a way for small firms to sell abroad. The station did not say how many people have registered, or whether anything will be signed./.