china

Chinese Group Platinum Estates has purchased the former headquarters of Telefonica in Barcelona, located in the Eixample neighbourhood, for €56.4 million, according to a statement by Renta Corporación, which managed the transaction. Furthermore, investors will allocate €45 additional million to transform the building, once belonging to the first telecommunications company in Spain, into a block of flats. The building, located on the Roma Avenue, was the propriety of Cerep Investment, a company controlled by private equity Group Carlyle, until it went bankrupt in the spring of last year. The buyer is a family group based in Hong Kong, which is part of Platinum Estates and is led by textile tycoon Harry Mohinani, of Hindu origin.

Willie Walsh, the CEO of IAG – the group formed by British Airways and Iberia, guaranteed that its subsidiary airline Vueling will continue having Barcelona El Prat Airport as its main base if Catalonia becomes an independent country and even if it is forced to abandon the European Union. “We will continue in Barcelona”, he emphasised on Tuesday in a meeting with press reporters from the Chinese city of Chengdu, according to an article published by Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia. Walsh was in China as British Airways was unveiling a new route linking this city with London.

The Catalan capital will host the certification and inspection lab that the China Certification & Inspection Group (CCIC) will base in Europe to analyse and validate the products that the Asian giant imports. The Chinese company will initially invest €2 million in its Barcelona centre, which will be built in the Zona Franca industrial and business district, located next to the city’s port and airport. The CCIC carries out the inspection, verification and certification of foreign products entering the Chinese market. The news was confirmed on Tuesday by the CCIC’s President, Zhan Li Qiang, in a meeting in Beijing with a business delegation from the Barcelona City Council. A year ago, the Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias, met the CCIC in Hong Kong.

54% of Catalonia’s external sales go to the international market while the remaining 46% go to the rest of Spain. The number of Catalan companies which sold their products outside of Spain in 2012 was 45,000 enterprises, representing a 6.3% increase in relation to the 2011 figures and 11,554 more companies than at the start of the economic crisis. The export sector represented €58.28 billion, which was 28% of Catalonia’s GDP in 2012. The figure represented a 5% increase compared to 2011 and a 15% growth on data from before the economic crisis. Sales outside the European Union increased by 16% last year, especially in Oceania (61%), Africa (24%) and Latin America (21%).

The Barcelona-based company Applus+, partially-owned by the Carlyle Group and specialized in automobile technical inspections, reports and certificates, has bought the Chinese company EDI. The transaction, whose cost is unknown, allows the company to increase its capacity in the Asian market. The acquisition of local companies is one of the usual tactics by the Catalan corporation to reach new markets worldwide. Applus+ is present in 65 countries already and most of its revenue comes from international markets. Besides, the operation reinforces Barcelona’s position as an international centre of the automation industry.

The Blaugrana will play exhibition matches in Shanghai on the 4th of August, Bangkok on the 7th of August and Kuala Lumpur on the 10th of August. However, the names of the teams facing Barça have not been revealed yet. It will be the second FC Barcelona’s Asia Tour after that of summer 2010. Barça will firstly play against Guardiola’s Bayern Munich on the 24th of July, for charity purposes. Furthermore, the Catalan team might play on Tel Aviv on the 31st of July with a Israel and Palestine side in order to support peace and understanding, although this has not been confirmed yet.

After an 8.3% drop in car sales in 2012, SEAT announced it would lay off 400 temporary workers and it would reduce administration and commercial costs, to the equivalent of 340 additional jobs. Finally, after three days of negotiation, the car company and the workers’ representatives have signed an agreement by which the workers will lose part of the extra hours accumulated but there will not be additional layoffs or a salary reduction. However, the 400 temporary workers will be made redundant and will have to leave the company. Additionally, the Spanish Government has announced that it will double the public budget to stimulate car purchases.

Barcelona-based car manufacturer Seat, which is part of the Volkswagen Group, delivered 8.3% fewer cars in 2012 compared to the previous year. In total, it sold 321,000 vehicles, instead of the 350,000 units of 2011. The decrease is due to the drop in car sales in Spain because of the economic recession. However, Seat sold 22.5% more cars in Germany and 8.2% more vehicles in the UK. The Catalan car manufacturer also increased its sales in Mexico by 16.5%. Overall, the Volkswagen Group sold 9.07 million cars in 2012, an increase of 11.2%. The group obtained positive results in all markets except Southern Europe (-0.3%) and Western Europe – excluding Germany – (-6.5%).

The production of the new Seat León, the brand’s flagship model, guarantees 1,600 direct jobs and 6,000 indirect ones in the supply industries. The car manufacturing company, owned by Volkswagen, has its only plant in Martorell, Greater Barcelona. The company has great expectations of the new Seat León, which will be distributed worldwide from Catalonia. The new car model is the milestone of Seat’s commercial and strategic plan for this year, with the objective of becoming profitable again. It will be sold in three different versions: a five-door and a three-door model, and a station wagon car.

The Catalan capital hosts the largest and most modern container terminal of the Mediterranean Sea, a true gate for cargo ships, linking Europe with the Middle East, Northern Africa and Asia. BEST, which stands for Barcelona Europe South Terminal, represents a €515 million investment by Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH). This week it has unveiled the first part of the project: 100 hectares to store containers, 1.5 kilometres of docking space for cargo ships, 98 cranes and a provisional international-width railway connection to compete with northern European harbours. However, the Spanish Government has not started the definitive railway connection yet, despite many promises.

Barça President, Sandro Rosell, will meet with representatives from three institutions and organisations that are currently working with the FC Barcelona Foundation: Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), UNICEF and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These projects take the Foundation’s work to countries like Brazil, Ghana, China and South Africa.

Twenty artists from Beijing’s National Circus o present ‘The Dream of a Journey to the East’ at the Porta Ferrada Festival, in the Costa Brava's town of Sant Felíu de Guíxols. The show, with a mix of entertainment and acrobatics choreographed to music, is directed by a showman who leads the narrative in close proximity to the spectators. Beijing’s National Circus has visited over 60 countries in the past 40 years and has won several international competitions.

FCB Escola unveiled its new Campus in the Beijing Olympic Center. The two-week camp, FCB Escola’s first in China, will serve to bring Barça’s values and training methodology to aspiring Chinese footballers.

The Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias has finished a seven-day visit to China. The aim of the trip was to promote Barcelona’s economy and attract new foreign investment in the Catalan capital. The Mayor spoke of the trip in a very positive light, pointing out the economic potential of Barcelona and highlighting the Chinese companies’ appreciation for the opportunity to invest in Barcelona.

English Summer S.A. has been organising English language immersion camps for kids for 30 years. This summer, Jiajia Wang Liu is organising a new concept for the company: a Chinese language summer camp. Wang Liu is an entrepreneur who came from China when she was 8. She studied economics at the Pompeu Fabra University and at Harvard. Nowadays, she has her own publishing house and a lot of projects on the go.