6th Chemical Industry Meeting

INVEST&GROW

The world's most dynamic, stable economies base their strength on a firm commitment to an industrial framework capable of generating sustainable employment and wealth. These countries thus have the production structure to successfully deal with growth cycles and maintain them during times of recession. This vision has been widely adopted by traditionally strong economies such as the United States, Japan and Germany, as well as emerging economies led by China, which have strongly supported the industrial framework.

As the European Union's industrial fabric has shrunk due to its inability to guarantee a competitive framework, the European Union has lost leadership in terms of innovation. It is now immersed in a structural crisis that will be hard to resolve if EU leaders and the Member States don't take action to ensure compliance with the political commitment to increase EU industry's contribution to GDP by 20%.

To achieve this much-desired 20%, two factors are required. First, it's essential to anticipate the behavior of medium- and long-term demand so strategy and activity can be oriented in that direction. Second, Member States' competitiveness must be increased to effectively attract investors to industry.

Invest & Grow is the theme of the 6th Chemical Industry Meeting, which is jointly organized by IESE and the Spanish Chemical Industry Federation (FEIQUE). Its first objective is to analyze the long-term perspectives of the main sectors supplied by the chemical industry by considering the economic behavior and structural changes of each one.

Another aim of the Industry Meeting is to analyze the key criteria used by chemical industry multinationals and SMEs when locating facilities in a specific country or increasing their production capacity there. This will enable us to clearly identify the factors that most impact companies' decision-making processes, as well as the government measures required to design effective industry policies.

Finally, the meeting will address the factor that provides the greatest competitive edge in the chemical industry today: energy. The aim will be to take the perspective of producers, operators and consumers to determine the ideal energy policy to guarantee coherent, competitive prices under safe, sustainable supply conditions.