Only international real estate trade fair in Spain Barcelona Meeting Point kicks off

Barcelona (CNA).- The Catalan Minister for Public Administration, Meritxell Borràs, and the Minister for Planning and Sustainability, Josep Rull, sent a letter to the President of Barcelona Meeting Point (BMP), Jordi Cornet, to communicate their decision to not attend the opening of the event this Wednesday morning. The reason is that by Tuesday, less than 24 hours before the start of Barcelona Meeting Point, the only international and professional real estate trade fair in Spain, the Government still did not have the official time of the inauguration, as the organisers were awaiting the agenda of the representative of the Spanish Government. Hence, the two ministers referred to this situation as "disregard and informality towards members of the Government of Catalonia and all the attendees" and declined to attend the opening day of the event, which will be held until next Sunday in the Montjuïc enclosure of Fira de Barcelona.

Jordi Cornet apologised to the Government for the lack of precision on the time of the official opening. The President of Barcelona Meeting Point (BMP) attributed it to an "organisational error" and regretted the "misunderstanding”. "At no time has there been any willingness to disregard the Government”, he reaffirmed during the inauguration of the event, and stressed that he "personally" will make sure that the situation is not repeated next year. Cornet sent a letter to the directors of the Catalan Ministries regretting the misunderstanding and spoke to them in person. "I'm not suspect of anything, our desire was that they attend the inauguration, there is no political motivation", explained Cornet.

In the end, the opening was attended only by the representative of the Spanish Government in Catalonia, Maria de los Llanos de Luna and the second deputy mayor of Barcelona, ​​Jaume Collboni.

40,000 visitors expected

This year´s Barcelona Meeting Point opened this Wednesday and will run until the 23rd of October. The five-day real estate trade fair is in its 20th edition and has increased the number of exhibitors by 15%, while professional visitors are expected to exceed 10,000 people. According to the general director of BMP, José María Pons, it is estimated that this year’s edition will surpass 2015’s number of visitors and achieve between 30,000 and 40,000 attendees.  

Jordi Cornet said that this year’s edition will mark the definitive "consolidation" of the recovery in the Catalan and Spanish property sector. Cornet stressed that the real estate sector is facing this event with "optimism and confidence", taking into account the latest recovery in the sale of houses, which rose 20.3% in August and has been on the rise for seven months in a row, according to the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE).

40 leading international investment funds at the 20^th edition

BMP reaches its twentieth anniversary with a commitment to internationalisation. In this sense, the event will host the third edition of Barcelona Meeting Funds, a special programme that will bring together 40 leading international investment funds, such as TPG Capital, Lone Star and Credit Suisse, between the 19th and the 21st October. There will be plenary sessions and private meetings that will serve as a meeting point between leading companies in the property sector in Spain and the presidents and CEOs of major international investment funds.

BMP will bring together 312 companies from 15 countries in an area of ​​22,000 square metres and will also offer 20 lectures by 85 speakers. "We want to be a tool at the service of the citizen and facilitate the purchase of their home. So we want to focus on providing information about the real estate market buyers, in line with the public opening of the event at Barcelona Meeting Point ", said Cornet.

Foreigners account for 13.3% of property purchases in Spain

In the second quarter of 2016, 13.3% of the properties purchased in Spain were bought by foreigners, mostly British. This is especially significant considering that sales soared by 23.7% and housing prices increased by 7.5%. With this in mind, BMP has renewed in this edition the Cluster ‘Shop in Barcelona, Real Estate’ aimed at bringing together Spanish property companies and investors and property agents from major European countries, such as France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Switzerland.

Since 2011, Barcelona Meeting Point has successfully held the ‘Russian Meeting Point’ (also organised in Marbella and Benalmádena, a town in Andalusia in Southern Spain, in 2012 and 2013 respectively) in order to facilitate sales to Russian property investors. In 2013 the growing group of Chinese buyers were added to this format and in 2014 and 2015 this cluster was opened to the more traditional markets of Europe, which are currently the ones buying in Spain the most.