The Government finances the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation with 5 million euros

The Council of Ministers today approved a royal decree granting a grant of five million euros to the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation for the celebration of MWC Barcelona (formerly Mobile World Congress).

This annual grant is part of the activities with which the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise seeks to promote the growth of the economy through projects related to technological innovation and digitalization. “Technology is intrinsically linked to productivity and economic growth, and is one of the sectors of activity with the greatest potential”, says the acting Minister of Economy and Business, Nadia Calviño: “It is important that Spain has emblematic forums such as the MWC that generate great added value and place our country at the forefront of global developments in this field.”

MWC Barcelona is the most important event in the world in the field of mobile phone technologies, being the place where companies providing mobile services, device manufacturers and content distributors show the latest news, innovations and advances. In the 2019 edition many of the novelties and debates revolved around the imminent arrival of fifth generation or 5G mobile technologies.

This congress has an important economic and social impact. In the last edition it gathered more than 109,000 visitors from 198 countries and counted more than 2,400 companies that showed highly innovative products and services in 120,000 square meters of exhibition space. The economic impact of this edition was around 473 million euros, significantly higher than the figure of 2018.

“The objective of the Government of Spain is that the congress will remain in the city beyond 2023, the year in which the current agreement expires,” says Nadia Calviño. As a result of the impetus of the Ministry of Economy and Enterprise together with the Mobile World Capital Barcelona Foundation and the public entity Red.es, the MWC has incorporated since its 2019 edition a humanist reflection forum on digitalization, Digital Future Society.