PROEXCA designs internationalization actions for the Canarian economy based on innovation, technology and digitization

Under the slogan 'Avanza_Proexca' (Proexca Advances), this year's edition of the Proexca International Forum (FICA 2022) has served to expose the strategic lines of the public company for the coming years and to publicize the multiple tools that it makes available to the business community of the Archipelago and foreign companies that want to invest in the Canary Islands

The Canary Islands International Forum, FICA 2022, organized by the public company Proexca, has focused the debates in this edition on ways to attract and retain talent from the companies of the Archipelago and on the triple sustainability to which all projects must aspire of internationalization that aspire to be competitive in the current global market: environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

During the opening of the event, the Deputy Minister of Economy and Internationalization of the Government of the Canary Islands, Blas Acosta, highlighted that “this 2022 is assuming a period of inflection in many sectors. For this reason, in this edition we have decidedly committed to expanding the channels of participation and opinion in FICA, a space that now, more than ever, must be conceived as a meeting point and exchange of experiences between companies, organizations and institutions, to guide all the efforts of transformation and internationalization of companies and the economy in general, towards the most sustainable channels, both environmentally and over time, due to their economic and social solidity”.

In this sense, Acosta emphasized the work carried out by public administrations to provide the different socioeconomic agents with common spaces for analysis and debate and, in the case of Proexca, to accompany them throughout their internationalization process, both abroad and at the time to seek partnerships and investments from outside, so that “in 2021 alone, we managed to attract more than 300 million euros of investment and the creation of 619 specialized jobs”.

For her part, the managing director of Proexca, Dácil Domínguez, presented the company's Strategic Plan during the conference “which is based on the idea that the human capital, innovation and knowledge of the Islands must become driving elements that place Canary Islands on the map of the world economy. In the Islands, we have professionals with specialization and training who, together with the natural benefits of the Islands and the wide range of possibilities they offer us in different productive fields, are the most important letter of presentation of the Archipelago”.

A Plan that operates from six lines of action:

-The first of these focuses on the design of closer and more efficient support tools for internationalization for the Canarian company profile, that is, the environment of SMEs and professionals.

-The second, seeks to incorporate innovation, technology and digitization into the internationalization actions of our economy.

-Another axis focuses on people and their ability to develop talent for internationalization.

-A fourth line of action carries out a proactive task of attracting resources for the companies of the Archipelago, in a constant search for financing from international financial institutions, the European Union and other international organizations.

-The fifth axis is dedicated to promoting the Canary Islands as a destination for international business and fostering the attraction and retention of foreign investment with high added value.

-Finally, the Strategy also proposes actions within the Canarian business and institutional ecosystem, so as to reinforce the coordination and complementarity of the actions of the entire internationalization community of the Canary Islands, especially between the Government, Cabildos, Chambers of Commerce and Canary Islands Special Zone and the business fabric interested in starting or maintaining actions abroad.

Precisely in relation to this last axis, FICA 2022 included, in this eighth edition, different presentations and discussion tables in which specialists from various economic fields presented their forecasts regarding new trends and future lines of action and discussed how to attract and retain talent through the management of objectives, the role of the Canary Islands as a pole of attraction and retention of international talent or how SMEs can find in sustainability a differentiation of their brand in international markets. The conference, broadcast in streaming, was followed by more than two hundred people interested in the internationalization of the Canarian economy.