 Okay, welcome everyone. This press conference on competitive cities and the connection to global value chain. My name is Peter Vanham. I am the media lead at the World Economic Forum here present in Medellin. And with me today are three wonderful panelists. I'll start by introducing the lady, Annabel Gonzalez. She is trade and competitiveness director at the World Bank. But here today, as the Global Agenda Council share on competitiveness of the World Economic Forum. Then we have Alejandro Franco, who is director or CEO of Ruta Ene, organization from Medellin. And finally, of course, Federico Gutierrez, the mayor of Medellin, the Alcalde. We're very happy to welcome all of you here this afternoon. And thank you all for coming. We'll be doing this press conference in English and Spanish. And everyone will speak to their best ability in the language they speak best. And I think you can guess what that means. I'll be the only one speaking English and our three colleagues here are addressing you in Spanish. I'm going to ask a few questions to kick it off to each participant. And afterwards, we'll leave room for a few questions before wrapping up at 4 p.m. Okay, let's start. So we're here today to discuss competitive cities and their connection to global value chain. Ana Bel, when I first heard that, it was a bit complicated for me. So perhaps, could you start by explaining what global value chains are? Thank you very much, Peter, and I'm overjoyed to be in Medellin together with the mayor and Alejandro Peter. In order to talk about this report, the Competitiveness Global Council of WEF on competitive cities established contact with global value chains. Global value chains actually refers to the productive process that allows a product to be designed in one country, in one city that certain parts and components or elements of that product be produced elsewhere and that the different parts and components be assembled in a third country, in a third city. And then this opens up many opportunities for developing countries that need not be experts in manufacturing a good from beginning to end but can connect to global and regional value chains and thus participate in the productive process and obviously integrate themselves into the global economy. In our report, Peter, we say that there is a very important relationship between global value chains and competitive cities and why? First, because competitive cities are a sort of natural anchor for companies interested in having part of their productive process in that city and global value chains also contribute to turning cities into very powerful magnets that attract innovation, growth and job creation. So there's a very positive relationship between global value chains and competitive cities. Much more clear to me now. So we have these global value chains which help countries or cities go into the value chain of producing a good and then exporting it. Now normally we would think in terms of trade and competitiveness in terms of countries and the new thing here is of course that we think in terms of cities. And so you're looking at how cities can include themselves in these global value chains and then of course the question is how can they do it. And I think you've established around five ways of doing it. Is that correct? Yes, we have identified all the things a city needs to be competitive and thus attract investment, be it domestic or international, to connect to global value chains and these competitiveness factors also relate to regulatory measures and policies and institutions and infrastructure as well as what we call soft connectivity that is to say developing skills in the people, having innovation policies in place and so on and so forth. And I would say that five very important results we identified in our report on competitive cities and global value chains. The first is that to join a global value chain is very positive for a city's competitiveness first because it connects them to the world of trade and investment and also because it contributes to turn them into engines for innovation for productivity. And trade, another very important aspect is that the competitiveness of a city in this case is not something that can be achieved once. This is not a one-time thing. This requires constant effort of repositioning yourself, re-identifying opportunities and to be ready to make the best of them. So I think that this is something that you know it's very appropriate for us being here in Medellin and present the report here because we studied Medellin in our report and it's a wonderful example of a city that's been working very hard in a sustained manner on improving its competitiveness. The third result identified in our report is that cities must on the basis of their physical infrastructure develop a soft connectivity that is as important as the physical infrastructure and we're talking about a population that has the right skills that we have in innovation, science and technology, policies in place and the fourth point we've identified in our report is that cities flourish and boom in an environment of openness, open to investment, open to trade, open to people and open to ideas. And finally the fifth point we identify in our report is that it is of paramount importance for city leaders both in the public sector as well as the private sector know how value chains work and how investors make investment decisions so that they can invest resources in enhancing and improving competitiveness in an effort to bring global value chains and integrate themselves there too and the result is dual greater productivity and greater employment and greater growth. And for people that want to read more about this report we'll be releasing this publicly tonight. It looks like this and you will all get a copy of the report by email. Now of course there's one thing is of course the theory and what you can find about what makes cities competitive globally and the other thing is of course how it applies to specific cities and the wonderful thing that we have here today is that Medellin is actually one of the best in class examples in Latin America or Colombia or even Latin America when it comes to inserting itself in global value chains and so that's when I turn to you Alejandro and I want to ask you because you've been working on this case of Medellin with Ruta Enne, what have you found? Why is Medellin such a good example for this case and what were your main findings? Thank you very much Pete and I too want to greet everyone. The first thing we have to say is that we're overjoyed to be part of the report 30 years ago. This would have been impossible today 30 years later. We are a benchmark for the world so we to say that we are in a study together with cities like Balbao well you know makes us very proud and what has happened that we started off with our conditions and see how based on that we could emerge naturally global value chains are meaningful from our perspective and our perspective is talent and that is what we have reinforced because yes we are part of all these global value chains but our competitiveness undoubtedly must be on the side of talent and innovation and we under that taxonomy of city competitiveness have understood that taxonomy in the way in which we've been working because when we speak of a taxonomy for city competitiveness one has to do with public policy. In Medellin we have developed a science, technology and innovation plan that allows us to focus our growth in three specific areas ICTs health and energy. Why? Because this obviously profits from all the things we have here and since we are far away from the sea we have proven competitiveness in spite of our being so far away from the coastline. Second it has much to do with having strong institutions and the institutional framework we have here and we can take great pride in saying that we have a university enterprise and government partnership and we all work together for the benefit of our city so it isn't a single view of the policy of the current administration but rather this is agreed with the business community and with the academia and together we've defined our north and we have strong technological centers we have research universities that transfer this research to the market and obviously companies that have integrated themselves in the international value chain another aspect of the competitiveness taxonomy has to do with hard connectivity and here we speak of how we developed the district for innovation this city will have 172 hectares earmarked exclusively to making space so that the companies technological development centers come and set up shop here in Medellin and grow thanks to the platform that Latin America offers as a gateway to Latin American like Annabel said during her remark it has much to do with soft connectivity and we speak of integrating into networks but knowledge networks we were talking about ICTs health and energy we need to have the best in the world and that's where we have identified who is at that state of the art knowledge and how are we connecting to them today in Medellin we have identified collaborative working networks with others in the world and we also have virtual schemes to interact we have a very powerful platform Sonford Eye that allows us to connect investors researchers the startups and large companies under collaborative schemes so that knowledge flows and the challenges and major problems may be worked together thanks to this collaboration so there's no doubt that we have transformed as a city I mean like I said earlier this 30 years ago would have been unthinkable and we have achieved fantastic results in our city in that innovation district we already have 135 companies from 22 countries producing over 22,000 jobs in the knowledge area and they also permeate other sectors one direct job can have around 5 indirect jobs and that is strengthening our city's economy and it's also worth mentioning that we are working very closely on strengthening that segment of the city and we have clear innovation processes that will help them to develop at least one innovative product a year so that is what explains how we have integrated ourselves into these global value chains and we've done so on the basis of our talent having the right institutional framework in place that you are part of the global value chain and that the World Economic Forum is welcome here and to be in Medellin you said of course 30 years ago the situation of Medellin was completely different and today we are the big example with other cities like Bilbao and Dubai I think you mentioned and of course we have here someone with us which is the mayor we're not sure if he'll be here in 30 years but he'll be here for sure for a good number of years and so maybe Federico I should ask you what you expect for the future for Medellin where will we see if you're already best in class where will we see you in five years maybe that's a manageable years to look forward to In 30 years I do hope to be here alive and kicking maybe not as a mayor of the city and it is I take great pride in being the current mayor of Medellin and to have you here so welcome and I do agree with what Alejandro and Annabela said because you see the first thing we have to do is understand where Medellin came from and why we are where we are in 1991 we were the most violent city in the world no one respected us no one thought we had a future and we started working and the best thing that Medellin has is its people its people's talents their eagerness their desire to work and if there's been something key in this development that is now reflected in Annabela's numbers is the way in which we teamwork how we work together enterprise university and state that we have a monthly gathering a monthly meeting with the leading entrepreneurs of the city and we attend as the municipal authority together with universities and together we identify public policy and that has given rise to projects like route en ruta en and this entire entrepreneurship system has been strengthened and that's why its key for us to make sure that the city continues to improve in competitiveness terms as a city we've done a lot of things but we have yet a lot more to do our goals are very high goals and I would say that a key issue in competitiveness is something that is being done in the region which is to overcome that road backwardness we had for so many decades because of our topography the highways that are being built and key news like yesterday's when together with the governor we initiated a work which is the toyotunnel which is going to be the longest tunnel in Colombia 9.8 kilometers and brings us closer to the sea for us to export our goods because we have to export the increasingly more if we want top quality jobs we need top quality education and that's something that you know prior administrations have been working on that's another great thing in the cities that Medellin has had several successive governments and we draw on and improve that's why that enterprise academia and state partnership is so important as is connectivity as well as investing in science technology and innovation that packed for innovation in that by 2018 we will be investing two GDP points in science technology and innovation will help us improve our position in that ranking that we hope to continue improving that the innovation district in the northern part of the city where we have these 162 hectares reserved so that the best companies of the world that are in science technology and innovation come to Medellin will continue to empower our development but what do we need? continue to prepare ourselves and that is why I insist so much on education education is key, it's core and that has been one of the most important finding in every competitiveness study, survey and report but to close I'd like to say that we have a city that in general we know where it's heading and citizens support the city administration the citizenry is convinced that we're on the right track and trust is key and the word trust is part of a language and after having lived the very worst day in Medellin there is confidence, there is trust and the eyes of the world have fallen upon Medellin and they're following us very closely so one of the outcomes of this forum isn't just two days of fantastic discussions that leave the city many good things but what comes afterward and this is something that we've been doing with the entrepreneurs which is inviting them to come to Medellin to invest in this country and to believe in our city and I love what you said about confidence that confidence at the end is the most important thing and of course we have seen a great report and a great case study of how Medellin has gotten to where it is and you've been able to say it in the taxonomy in all the different industries of how it got in there but at the end of the day Mayor you say it's also or most importantly about confidence with that I'd like to now see if there's any journalist with the confidence to ask a question to any of our panellists and I'll start here with Roberto but if you allow me I'd like to supplement something we mentioned something yesterday and I apologize for interrupting you we were with the National Association of Industrialist which is that big companies per se are not competitiveness they're not competitive they need a good supply chain they need to have a good supply chain and good suppliers and the big companies we have in Colombia that have allowed other companies to become their suppliers and we have a good supply chain has allowed us to be even more competitive all those anchor companies are key for us and a company like EPM which is our pride it's a 100% state owned and run public utility 25% of our budget year in and year out comes from EPM transfers to the city of Medellin companies like Ecopetrol, like Azeb so we have a good number of key companies that have allowed us Annabel to be a city that is competitive compared to other Latin American cities Flyers indeed are present in that value chain and not just the large companies which are of course a few good examples in Colombia too and I want to turn to Roberto and afterwards to learn for two questions please go ahead can you speak up a little bit I know you've taken baby steps I mean do you hope to become a Silicon Valley obviously industry here is not like Silicon Valley yet but is that your intent I mean would you like to eventually get to that level and if that is the case how do you expect to get to that level I have a question already here Lauren wanted to ask a question so go ahead and then we'll go over the answers yeah please go ahead good afternoon my question is for you Mr. Gutierrez I am almost from my question is a very impactful thing I saw when I arrived in Medellin a year ago from Bogota is the culture the city culture the citizen culture yes on the metro there's no garbage when it's eating or screaming a person walking along the streets how did this process start 20-30 years ago how did you go about educating citizens I mean it's not that you have very big fines on people how did you change people's mindsets in order to implement all the social changes that you have implemented in Medellin the question was can Medellin be Silicon Valley if it is not yet and I believe the question Roberto, thanks for the question thank you for your question and I would say no because we have to be very clear we have a clear mandate as a city which is improving the quality of life of the citizens of Medellin by generating better jobs and better quality jobs to help us improve the city's economy as well that we from Ruta Ena can help solve many of these serious pressing problems in the city and thanks to our collective intelligence and our institutions we will be able to respond to that and if we manage to do that then we would be achieving our goal of transforming the vocation of our city's economy and go from being a traditional economy into a knowledge-based economy and that's where we want I mean, regardless of it being Silicon Valley or emulating what's happening in London or Israel, which are our benchmarks, no doubt is to understand that in the city we need to work on four main pillars for us to influence the quality of life of people to have unlimited talent and we said earlier we need to develop the conditions so that we have in the city the talent required to manage a knowledge-based business, networks how do we integrate Medellin in the world and the world into Medellin through knowledge-based networks and online interactions so that we are on the frontier of knowledge three, the topic of infrastructure we are betting heavily on developing an innovation sector so that Columbia will be hosting science, technology and innovation companies and we would be a hub out of which you could work with all of Latin America and we need capital available we are deploying all efforts possible to first the state we views us as an entrepreneurial state and any money invested and since we are socializing risk we also socialize gains which means that if we put money into something we will get our return on capital and ensure more capital and how to make sure that the hedge funds come and settle in Medellin and there will be funds available to invest in the city's initiatives so my concrete answer is we want our own model and to learn from the others in the world and tailor that to our reality in order to improve the quality of life of our citizens for the answer to the second question which is looking at Medellin and being surprised at how responsible citizens are how is it all started and where does it come from why is Medellin now what it is and I would like to supplement what Alejandro said regarding the role of rutaine which is key to us and it is that the goal is to generate good quality jobs for people and enhance and improve their quality of life but that process requires resolving and help us resolve the most pressing problems we have as a city through social innovation and that's key and that is one of the instructions and roles of rutaine which is key to us in terms of healthcare, urban education mobility quality of air and we've been working on that and this has to translate into actual benefits for the city and that's why there is close articulation between rutaine and all the teachers working in the public system and that has been requested by the private sector when we've organized those big meetings state enterprise and academia who they have said we need rutaine to do that your name is what excuse me Lauren, Lauren, okay, Lauren that I really like your question because that is what differentiates the city what is the best of Medellin we can speak of its mountains its flowers of many many things of our products but the best of Medellin is its people and those people who live in Medellin have a special feeling of belonging to our city those of us who live in Medellin love our city we take great pride in living here and being from here and that means that all these citizen culture processes are more viable when you have a city process that does not mean that that's something with which we are born and it stays at that no, we have to work this day in and day out and we have to work people on the metro you mentioned the metro the subway this was accomplished through a strategy that applied before, during and after deconstruction and operation of the metro and it's called the metro culture and that is understood by everyone who goes to a station and hops on one of the cars love for the system that's key and confidence, trust you may wonder why around the stations there's no garbage but one street away you can I mean, you know, here we also litter we don't litter, excuse me we deposit litter and garbage where we have to that is a very important culture and now that we've approved our four year development plan citizen culture plays a key role and that is cross cutting to government for us citizen culture is transversal cross-cutting it has to do with security coexistence, tolerance, respect for others and that citizen behavior is what makes the city differentiate and have added value because the city goes beyond the mayor I may be the mayor and I can have the best of intentions with the city but if I don't have a citizen right working, you know, shoulder to shoulder with me it's going to be very difficult to progress there are 2.5 million people in Medellin and citizen culture means that every citizen with their daily actions will turn Medellin into a better city that we respect traffic signs that we respect others we respect our family members, our neighbors so we have to continue working on that and that citizen culture is in the development plan and we work it every day and what does that translate into? it translates into confidence citizen trust is very important and that is what we are aiming for and an exercise of trust explains WEF being here today because it trusted in us it has confidence in Medellin and the country because it's been a witness of what we've lived of what we've gotten out of and what we're getting into and we don't want to destroy that trust and we truly thank you WEF for having come and thank you and Bill who have been our allies, our partners and with whom we must continue working and this is a daily exercise but you have to cultivate it like flowers, you have to grow it you have to add a little water and then harvest but we can say that that is Medellin's biggest differentiator I would say love for the city makes the difference some love for the city and thank you to all the panelists for being present and thank you for everyone who came to the session thank you