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An economic delegation from Belgium is visiting the country to identify new areas of opportunity in which to invest.
Rosalía Lara
A group of politicians, businessmen and even royals from Belgium is visiting Mexico this week to identify new areas of opportunity for trade and investment between the two countries.
The delegation, headed by Princess Astrid -who met Monday with Andrés Manuel López Obrador-, is made up of representatives of 137 companies from the food and beverage, information technology, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors.
Belgium ranks fourth among the countries of the European Union most important to Mexico, in terms of investment, and the seventh worldwide, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Between 1999 and September 2018, the accumulated investment in the country is around 19.3 billion dollars, which represents 3.6% of total direct foreign investment in Mexico.
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Among the business meetings, which take place in Mexico City and Monterrey and conclude on February 22, the inauguration of the offices of the pharmaceutical company UCB stands out.
Didier Malherbe, CEO of UCB Belgium, said that this company has 21 years of operations in Mexico and has a staff of 200 employees in the country, its second most important market in Latin America. UCB specializes in medications focused on neurological and immunological diseases. In 2017, its revenues totaled 4,500 million euros (5,100 million dollars).
Like her, other firms have set their sights on Mexico. At the event, the representatives of companies such as AMB Ecosteryl, Quality by Design, GSK, IBA Group and Mithra Pharmaceuticals declared to be interested in investing in both the public and private sectors, with their different medical solutions.
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"We have the extraordinary opportunity to establish a more consistent link in the health industry between Mexico and Belgium. This enormous wealth of the medical industry can lead to start a collaboration with Social Security and incorporate the enormous need for homogeneous drugs to the entire population, "said Alejandro Mohar, national commissioner of the National Institutes of Health of Mexico.
And, according to Pierre-Yves Jeholet, Minister of Economy of the Government of Wallonia, Belgium is number one in the world in export of medicines, according to per capita figures.
A cinema agreement
Another one of the industries in which the Belgian companies showed interest is the cinematographic one. As part of this weeks activities, the delegation donated a projector from the Cinionic company to the National Chamber of the Cinematographic Industry (Canacine). The event was attended by representatives of Cinépolis and Cinemex, the two largest chains in Mexico, which together have a 93% share in the number of rooms.
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This expands Canacines borders in the world. "The fact that the princess comes to donate the projector speaks very well of how they are seeing us in the industry worldwide, Mexico is the fourth largest market in the world by number of tickets sold and by number of rooms," said Michel de la Canal, director of Institutional Relations of Canacine.
The projector will be used in the cinema room of the Canacine, for the private projections of its partners and for the diploma offered by this organization. |
