Fira Barcelona head guarantees that Mobile World Congress will stay in city

The president of trade fair organization Fira Barcelona, Pau Relat, has made a bullish statement regarding the organization's 2020 endeavors. 

Amidst recent weeks of political and societal turmoil in Barcelona in the wake of the verdict of the Catalan independence referendum trial, in which nine of the leaders were sentenced to 9 to 13 years behind bars for their role in the 2017 independence referendum, Relat has assured that the Mobile World Congress, the largest mobile event in the world, will remain in Barcelona.

Last year's event attracted 107,000 trade visitors and Relat has said that the institution is working hard to make sure that the 2020 edition is also ''a success.''

''We are all smart enough to keep the Mobile World Congress going with us,'' he said. 

He also stressed that while economic activities require ''stability'' and ''legal security,'' after weeks of protests, police violence and damage to city structures against the sentence, ''a period has begun where things will normalize'' and international confidence will be recovered.