Art and Industry Make for a Gaudy
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BARCELONA Innovative & Creative Business FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT | Tuesday March 22 2011 www.ft.com/barcelona2011 | twitter.com/ftreports Inside this issue Automotive Art and Globalisation has forced traditional manufacturers to explore new avenues industry Page 2 Biotech Lack of a local champion and of funding raise questions about the prospects for make for a the capital hungry sector Page 2 Football Running the gaudy mix city’s hugely successful football Victor Mallet This is a city of European team takes commerce and industrial revolu- more than examines how creative tion, but also of art and culture. just skill on the pitch and design businesses Barcelona is the city that nur- Page 3 tured artists Pablo Picasso and are coping in the wake Joan Miró, and the home of Profit tonic FeverTree, of the financial crisis architect Antoni Gaudí, whose which makes premium long unfinished Sagrada Familia drink mixers, explains why (Holy Family) church was the group is expanding in arcelona has never finally consecrated last year by Spain Page 4 been afraid of the new. Pope Benedict XVI. Not every- This is, after all, the one likes the works of Gaudí Publishing Barcelona has city that in the 13th that dominate parts of Barce- Vibrant city: Barcelona is regarded as a world centre for design and architecture Dreamstime a rich literary history Bcentury opted for a form of gov- lona, but no one ever accused Page 5 ernment closer to democracy him of lacking originality. Overseas investment into ety into action after a decade or gross domestic product. Such such as Ferran Adrià already than most other systems of the Barcelona has repeatedly Barcelona so of shrugged shoulders and growth businesses include fash- renowned throughout the world. Gourmet reinvention time – the Consell de Cent, or rebuilt and modernised itself to unproductive nostalgia over the ion and design, an industry that “Barcelona is a very diversi- Total project investment ($m) The chef behind El Bulli is Council of One Hundred, whose maintain its hard-won prosper- successful initiatives of the past. builds on Barcelona’s traditional fied city. We don’t have one sec- shutting the restuarant to imposing assembly hall adorned ity, as it did in order to make an 600 “The crisis is helping to pull strengths in textiles and archi- tor, we have several, old and with Catalan flags can still be exemplary success of hosting together civil society and there tecture and takes advantage of new: food, cars, housing, tour- open a culinary foundation Page 6 seen at the municipal offices in the 1992 Olympic Games. 500 are a lot of initiatives from peo- the creative flair of local and ism,” says Jordi William Carnes, the old city centre. Now it must do so again, as ple not involved in politics.” foreign inhabitants. deputy mayor. “What we’ve The Council lasted more than Catalonia, Spain and indeed the 400 Ms Prats is part of a group of Barcelona and Catalonia have done with all of them is help four centuries, its durability whole of southern Europe strug- organisations, entrepreneurs also invested their hopes – and with their renewal.” Barcelona More on FT.Com attributed by Robert Hughes, gle to emerge from a global 300 and professionals called Barce- their money – in biotechnology Activa, the municipality’s local Guest author of a cultural history of financial crisis and the subse- lona Global that is trying to pro- and biomedicine, and in high- development agency, says it 200 Column Barcelona, to the fact that it quent eurozone sovereign debt mote competitiveness, innova- tech electronics and services supports more than 1,000 new Alfons was flexible and not completely crisis – a challenge that has tion and technological research companies that can move projects a year, and hosts 115 100 Sauquet dominated by wealthy mer- already driven Greece and Ire- in the city, while improving beyond their involvement in companies at its business “incu- explains why chants. “A leather worker, a tai- land into the arms of rescuers social cohesion, education and traditional industries such as bator” and technology park. 0 lor, a cooper, or a smith might from the European Union and Barcelona’s international image. vehicle manufacturing to apply Yet the length of the current he thinks sit in session with a trading the International Monetary 2003 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 For years, both the private their skills to the electric cars, economic crisis affecting the Barcelona banker or the biggest spice Fund, with Portugal perhaps Source: FDI Intelligence from sector and government – aerospace applications and whole of Spain, and the eco- has become a hub importer in Barcelona in terms not far behind. Financial Times Ltd national, regional and municipal information technologies of the nomic austerity plans designed for innovation and of voting equality,” he wrote. Julia Prats, assistant profes- MORE ON FT.COM – have targeted promising secto- future. to cut the nation’s annual creative industries But the innovations of Barce- sor of entrepreneurship at Iese, ral clusters for investment in Then there are the services budget deficit and limit the FT.com/barcelona2011 lona, capital of Catalonia and the Barcelona-based business For more on FDI in the city, go to the 27 municipalities of greater connected to tourism: cruise growth of government debt, are Spain’s second city, did not stop school, says these crises seem to www.ft.com/fdibarcelona Barcelona that together account ship visits, hotels, trade fairs, at politics and administration. have galvanised Barcelona soci- for 60 per cent of Catalonia’s and food, with Catalan chefs Continued on Page 2 2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES TUESDAY MARCH 22 2011 Barcelona: Innovative & Creative Business From car door panels to hybrid batteries time in 2007, while the number Now, both the regional gov- One company emblematic of side Barcelona. “We made the As part of this strategy the Automotive of vehicles produced in Catalo- ernment and local players in the this shift is Ficosa, a family- argument to move into what we company is investing in source nia was 120,657 lower in 2009 automotive technology sector owned car parts manufacturer could see was the growing over- and supply batteries, developing Globalisation has than in 2004, according to data are hoping that a rebalancing founded in 1949 that has moved lap between the auto sector and and testing safer types of chas- forced traditional from the Catalan government. towards high-tech and green car quickly to start producing an electronics.” sis, and constructing a servicing Mirror image: In an effort to combat this technology will allow one of array of green and electronic The Villadecavallis factory, system for electric motorcycles. manufacturers to companies such combination of vigorous foreign Catalonia’s most important auto gadgets. These include previously used by Sony to man- A study into the benefits of explore new avenues, as Ficosa are competition and a falling share industries over the past 100 technology to detect when a ufacturer television sets and green car technology for the shifting from of exports to the European mar- years to remain relevant during driver falls asleep at the wheel, other home electronics, has Catalan regional government says Miles Johnson simple car parts ket, the region’s car industry the next century. and paper-thin car aerials. become the centre of Ficosa’s argues that companies in the into electronics has begun to refocus on green While the Catalan automotive In 2005, Vicenç Aguilera, head drive to develop new technol- region are well placed in the and electronic technologies to sector is headed by two large of research and development at ogy, where it manages a portfo- electric motorcycle industry, f all of Barcelona’s export to other, faster foreign vehicle assemblers, Seat Ficosa, made the recommenda- lio of more than 600 active pat- helped in part by demand from surviving heavy indus- growing parts of the (owned by Volkswagen) and tion to the company’s board to ents and serves clients includ- the large metropolitan area of tries, few have been world. Renault, a number of local sys- begin shifting its strategic focus ing Continental, the tyre group, Barcelona, and closeness to forced to transform In March 2009, the tem and component companies away from making simple steel and Hewlett-Packard. other European export markets. Othemselves in the face of glo- Catalan govern- operate on a global scale, and plastic-based car parts, and Another Barcelona-based com- Ficosa’s Mr Aguilera says that balisation as much the city’s ment approved a attempting to diversify their into electronics. pany moving towards green car the process of shifting the focus vehicle manufacturers. programme for businesses towards high-tech Focusing on three core areas – technology is Applus, Spain’s of businesses such as his The Catalan automotive green vehicles and environmentally-focused electronic safety devices, wire- largest certification and car towards innovative technologi- industry, which in 2009 made up as part of a 10- technology. less communication, and hybrid inspection company that has cal products for cars will enable 10 per cent of the region’s out- year strategy A report commissioned by the and battery technology – Ficosa allocated €7.8m to examine Ficosa to remain rooted in Cata- put and 15 per cent of its for the region’s regional government last year now invests 4 per cent of its ways to service electric and lonia while continuing to exports, has suffered a slow car manufac- argued that “electric vehicles turnover in research and devel- hybrid cars. expand in developing markets. long-term decline because of turers to ensure present an opportunity for the opment.