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Private Sector Forum of the OAS Emphasizes Importance of “Sustainable Competitiveness”

The private sector forum of the Organization of American States, sponsored by the OAS and the main hemispheric business organizations, concluded the round of meetings in the headquarters of the organization in Washington by emphasizing the importance of developing sustainable competitiveness in the region, which in the judgment of the participants should be ratified as a basic commitment by the governments of the hemisphere in the next Summit of the Americas.

The conclusions of the forum, combined with the results of the survey of businesspeople of the Americas presented today, will be presented tomorrow in a meeting of the Group of Verification of Implementation of Summits, a body in which are represented all the member countries of the OAS and which is charged with negotiating the mandates which will be adopted in the Summit in Cartagena de Indias, to which the heads of State and Government of the continent are invited.

“Its an act of consistency in which the conclusion is the necessity of developing sustainable competitiveness, that is to say, competitiveness that leads not only to economic development, but also social development and a proper interaction with the environment. It must be a competitiveness that is not focused solely on economic parameters, but also on people, on families, on children, on those who are the final objective of our actions,” affirmed Jorge Saggiante, Executive Secretary for Integral Development of the OAS.

Throughout the meetings, numerous experts and business leaders from the region laid out their visions about the role that should be played by the private sector in the future of the region and how the conditions in which that role is played could be improved. The forum emphasized the importance of public-private alliances in all contexts: the need for greater regional cooperation to guarantee citizen security and generate a modern and efficient infrastructure; and the benefits of increasing efforts to improve connectivity and access to technology.

Enrique de Obarrio, Vice President of the organization Private Sector of the Americas, pointed out that the business people who spoke in the forum showed themselves to be “a private sector increasingly less indifferent, increasingly less apathetic, that wants to involve itself and take part in a proactive way and with concrete proposals in the development agenda of the hemisphere, a private sector that, of course, understands more than ever its social responsibility, and that acts inspired by a feeling of co-responsibility and solidarity”. More than that, he added, the business leaders of the region are “conscious that the principal pressures of our people and countries are poverty and inequality,” scourges that they want to help combat “working and interacting in an interdependent way with the public-private sector”.

De Obarrio added that the businesspeople are aware that “to make the benefits of democracy a reality, which no doubt are many, we must also go to the root of the obstacles which impede us from making those benefits a reality, beginning with safeguarding democratic principles and institutions, protecting pillars of the system like the rule of law, institutionality, transparency and accountability, citizen security, and the firm fight against the terrible scourge of corruption”.

Representing the government of Colombia, host of the Summit of the Americas, Fulvia Elvira Benavides, adviser to the National Coordination of the event in Cartagena de Indias, participated in the closing. Ambassador Benavides pointed out “the exceptional opportunity that this VI Summit represents for our leaders to take advantage of the context of sustained economic growth, the financial solidity, and the democratic stability in the region, and to take measures that allow the strengthening of our integration as a prosperous and competitive region in which cooperation and solidarity are fundamental values”.

The Colombian diplomat pointed out that, in addition to the Summit of the Americas, Colombia will receive, from the 24th to the 26th of October, the “Competitiveness Forum of the Americas”, in which more than 1,000 leaders from the Americas will take part, among them ministers, vice ministers, representatives of the private sector, of academia, of civil society, and of multilateral organizations like the OAS. The forum, which will be convened by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos himself, has as its objective easing the development of business and permitting the interchange of ideas and knowledge so that the countries of the Americas are more innovative, productive and competitive and with that improve the living standards of its inhabitants.

Also taking part in the closure of the Forum of the Private Sector of the OAS Maria del Mar Palau, Strategic Director of the National Association of Industries of Colombia, and who coordinates the organization of the “Business Summit of the Americas”, which will be held in Cartagena de Indias the day before the Summit of Heads of State and Government and which will bring together more than 300 top business executives from the hemisphere.

Palau explained that the Business Summit will focus on developing four themes: globalization and development; infrastructure for sustainable development; economic growth and natural resources; and social development and new models of business social responsibility. In all these contexts, she added, the intention of the organizers is to provide to the presidential Summit innovative solutions adapted to the reality of the Americas. “We don’t adopt models from other regions of the world, we will learn to create our own”, she concluded.

A gallery of photos of the event is available here.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-097/12