Gerardo Seeliger: "Madrid has never before focused its efforts on a project like this"
Gerardo Seeliger, president of the non-profit public-private association Madrid Open City, the platform for companies and the City Council to attract "talent and investment", and former Spanish Olympic sailor, was on Capital Radio's Atalayar programme, where he spoke about how to position Madrid among the world's leading cities.
Seeliger defended Madrid's great potential compared to other cities in terms of investment and hospitality. The Association, which he presides, aims to position and promote Madrid as an International Centre for Business, Talent and Innovation. The aim is to attract as many investors as possible to the Spanish capital, as Madrid Open City assures that what is good for Madrid is good for Spain.
Madrid Open City is the public-private collaboration platform to attract investment and events to the Spanish capital and to position it among the best international cities.
Exactly, it is a public-private platform; it is the first time that public enterprise and private initiative have come together in this great project, which was the brainchild of Madrid City Council. Now we are getting companies to get involved in this project financially but also as ambassadors. For example, every time the president of Real Madrid goes abroad, he "sells" Madrid, not only on a sporting level, but also on a health level, in short, at all levels. Madrid is very well positioned in all aspects that define both a country and a global city.
It is like a kind of cluster, a business platform, in this case supported by the administrative power, the Madrid City Council, which has a lot to say.
And it has to be like that, public-private collaboration today is one of the secrets of good functioning. On the one hand, we have the public sector, with a long-term policy and strategy, and then there are the companies that can provide economic and financial support, as well as added value such as talent. What we want is for companies, talent, innovation, tourism in all its forms and investment to come to Madrid. We want everything from taxi drivers to waiters and even the president of Telefónica or Repsol to benefit from the work that we are now starting.
Many people may think that now is not the best time, in terms of geographical mobility of tourists, the movement of companies or even the establishment of companies abroad. Is it the worst time in the last century or is it an opportunity?
For us, we are very optimistic that it is an opportunity. We missed the Brexit wave, five years ago we should have started this activity and the beneficiaries have been Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Lisbon, at the time Barcelona, but Madrid had never focused its efforts on a project like this. Although what Barcelona has done, projects such as Barcelona Global, dates back a long time and today it does not have a major project, we have now started to do it.
What specific actions does this platform translate into?
We want to work on three lines of action; the first is why cities like Singapore, Chicago or Tokyo are positioned ahead of us, and MBA students from the Instituto de Empresas have made an analysis of where Lisbon, Beijing or Singapore are and what Madrid should do to climb up the rankings. The second line of action is to go directly to companies abroad, companies with European positioning interests, and convince them of the great advantages of setting up in Madrid ahead of London or Paris. And lastly, to try to get content from Madrid linked to the fact that we are a great city. The City Council recently announced that it was going to create a forest of 300,000 trees, and this must be exported, we must explain it abroad. It is up to us to communicate at all levels, using all the communication highways, including social networks, in order to reach our destination.
Why Madrid? What is so special about Madrid, apart from being the capital of the country, to capture the attention of foreigners?
Madrid has an infinite number of attractions, but we have not been able to sell them properly. Madrid is currently the number one city in Europe in terms of the ease of teleworking, the second is Berlin. Another aspect that would give Madrid a competitive advantage over Berlin is the cost of housing, rent, the quality of life in Madrid cannot be compared to Berlin. The hospitality of the people of Madrid, the cultural diversity that exists in our city, the night and daytime entertainment, Madrid is a great city that welcomes everyone and everyone feels part of it. Madrid is the city in the world that attracts the most people who want to retire. This statistic is true and it is important. One of the biggest problems faced by multinationals is that their executives, once they have passed through Madrid, do not want to return to Chicago, Tokyo or Seoul, they want to stay here because the city welcomes them.
Let's not forget the Santiago Bernabéu. In Madrid's statistics, in addition to the cultural triangle of the Prado Museum, Reina Sofía and Thyssen, there have been months in which one of the most visited points by tourists was Real Madrid's stadium.
Indeed, in fact, there have been many months in which it has been the most visited spot in the city.
Sport nowadays attracts a huge number of people, cities all over the world come to a standstill when there is a Barcelona-Real Madrid match. There is a passion for football, it is a sociological phenomenon that can serve as an international image.
There is no doubt that Madrid is the world centre of sport in general. Maybe Los Angeles, in American football, but on a global level Madrid is the first. In tennis, we have hosted the new Davis Cup format in the last two years.
Earlier you mentioned the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, as one of the businessmen who could be Madrid's ambassadors abroad.
He would undoubtedly be one of the best ambassadors the city could have. On the other hand, there is a project, Castellana Norte, which is the most important real estate project in Europe in a city. Once they have finished in Chamartín, the same will be done in Atocha, and in Príncipe Pío, Madrid's capacity for development is incredible, and we are talking about sports and real estate, but on a cultural level, education and talent, three of the most important business schools in Europe are here, ESADE, IESE, and the Instituto de Empresas, and there are many more. Business people who decide to come to Madrid, Frankfurt or London look at talent and where they can get it, Madrid has an impressive capacity to get talent. The complicated thing is to retain it, they come here, then they double the salaries in London or Paris and there we have an important job ahead of us that we have to do.
The project is very interesting and necessary, public-private collaboration, which is the basis of this project, is far ahead in other countries, this is more Anglo-Saxon or American. In Spain, public-private collaboration has even come to be regarded with some suspicion, although in Madrid we are an open and hospitable city and that helps.
I am glad that we emphasise the fact that Madrid is a very open city, because that is precisely the name of our platform, Madrid Open City, and it is a very open city. Maria Fanjul has joined us, and I asked her, where can we improve, and her answer was clear, speed. In London you can set up a company in five minutes, with just an internet connection, but here, this is still not possible today. When I talk to my CEO, I tell him how long it took us to open a current account. As for the fiscal and legal aspect, we are going to tackle it, in two weeks we are organising our first conference and it will be here in Madrid. Issues such as security, the legal and fiscal potential that Madrid has will mark the event, there are some doubts and things to improve. On the other hand, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has scored an important goal for the rest of the country's Autonomous Communities by announcing that she was thinking of lowering taxes in our city. This is a reality, Madrid is lowering taxes, it cannot compete with Dublin, with Lisbon, with Holland, with Ireland, because they have other advantages. And this will be the first conference, we have in mind to do them on a monthly basis, on a specific topic. Innovation is another topic we will be talking about, transport, technology, the environment and electric cars will be key issues we will be discussing.
Does the decline of Barcelona benefit Madrid? Aspects such as the pro-independence attacks, the riots in its streets, the permanent altercations and the insecurity that all this entails, this helps Madrid's candidacy to improve its ranking.
Well, it is an objective fact to say that Barcelona is not ahead of us, but it is a pity about the whole situation that is happening there. It is terrible. I am going to quote the words of Antonio Garrigues, our honorary president, who on the very day we presented the project to him said: "What is good for Madrid is good for Barcelona, for Bilbao, for Seville, for Valencia, and for the whole of Spain". With all this we are learning a great deal about our country.
To what extent is political stability a key element in attracting investment and for Madrid Open City to achieve its objectives?
It is very important, nobody doubts that Spain is part of Europe and has certain limits, I don't know what our leaders want to do with the country, but the European community sets red lines that you cannot cross. There is no longer any danger there, investors or companies do not look to Madrid solely for political stability, but rather for the Latin American market. Spain has 500 million consumers, our project is a bridge to Latin America.
We are often self-defeating because the image of both Spain and Madrid outside the country is much better than we think or manage to convey.
There is such a thing as brand Spain. We are the second country in the world in terms of organ donation, we are third in the world in terms of high-speed train technology, we have a lot of potential and we have never been able to take advantage of it. Now we have a great opportunity and we want to take advantage of it. We are a great city and we have not been able to sell it to the world.
When you talk to businessmen or people who come to Madrid, apart from the points we have already mentioned, to what extent is gastronomy a differential element?
Of course it is. Moreover, we approach it in two different ways, firstly, through innovation. Innovation does not only refer to technology, innovation refers to culture, to music, to gastronomy, to hotels, to the service sector, Spain and especially Madrid gastronomically has an excellent reputation, it is one of our great attractions and there we have a very important competitive advantage over other countries. The other is tourism. Tourism and gastronomy are two differential aspects that characterise us. We haven't achieved this yet, but we want to bring José Andrés closer to our project, we want him to be with us.
José Andrés also has a very complicated agenda. Right now, he is working on his project to provide meals to people in need and affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and the work he is doing is impressive.
That is precisely why we want him to be with us. Not only the gastronomic brilliance, but also the human factor. Madrid has an enormous advantage over many cities and that is the great human value.
According to a study carried out by the IESE, 'Cities in motion', a ranking was made of the best cities in the world according to these parameters and, New York, London, Paris, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, Berlin and Amsterdam, are these the rivals to beat or are they too far away?
We are currently in thirteenth place, according to the studies of the main business schools. What hurts me is the fact that we are behind Berlin and Amsterdam, I don't understand it. But on a global level we are behind Melbourne, personally I don't think so, in five years' time we have to be ahead of these cities.
There are cities that are completely unbeatable, such as New York or London.
Indeed, at the European level we can overtake cities like Berlin or Amsterdam in the near future, but at the international level there are a couple of cities that cannot compete with them. At the moment, London is in first place as a global capital, followed by New York, which is an unbeatable rival, then Tokyo and Paris, and then Singapore and Amsterdam, which we can easily overtake. We have to beat cities like Berlin or Seoul. The fact that cities like Sydney or Melbourne are ahead of Madrid is something I cannot understand. Even so, we are ahead of cities like Stockholm, Vienna, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Osaka, Shanghai or Barcelona itself.
With Brexit, expectations had been created in terms of companies that could settle in Madrid, have we been able to take advantage of that opportunity or has it been diluted?
We have been passive, we have not moved, the Community of Madrid has done something, the City Council, on the other hand, has done nothing, but it has not been this public-private unity, I think that is where our great opportunity lies. There are still business groups that have subsidiaries in other parts of Europe, that are opening new headquarters in Madrid. What we have to do is ask these companies why they have come to Madrid, and point out why, for example, Netflix has come to Madrid. We are interested in attracting people, talented professionals who already have a certain level so that they create wealth in Madrid, so that they pay taxes and go and buy flats of a certain level and in this way boost Madrid's economy.
In this respect, there is the law on entrepreneurs, which also aims to attract talent, senior managers, people with business talent and also private investment in real estate, in companies with a "Golden Visa", which allows this foreigner not only to invest in a city that we are already seeing all the benefits it has, but also to have a residence permit that is not subject to renewal and can travel all over the world, settling in Madrid.
It is not easy, and the price is high, but we have to make it easier for more foreign investors and older people to come here.
Madrid Open City is also a Spanish project, do you play a role for Spain?
Absolutely, as I said before with Antonio Garrigues' phrase, he was the first to say that we had to do it that way, to focus in that direction. I'm glad you said that because Adif has joined precisely for this reason, because not only is Madrid important for Adif, but also the whole of distribution. When Toyota decides to open its European headquarters in Madrid, it automatically benefits Zamora, Seville and Almeria. It is very important for us that it is not only Madrid, and this is a responsibility that we want to assume in order to benefit the whole of Spain from our project. There are two reasons to come to Madrid, for business reasons, the market, the tax rate which is an incentive and the talent that can be found here, and the other is the quality of life. There are few cities in the world that have the quality of life of Madrid. Here there is great diversity and accessibility; our airport, for example, is twenty minutes from the city centre, while in Tokyo it is two and a half hours away; and all the traffic that goes to Latin America passes through Madrid in one way or another. Finally, we are one of the safest cities.