The tenth Barcelona International Community Day was a success! The city’s ecosystem of international talent gathered at the Maritime Museum again to enjoy over 60 activities, nearly 100 speakers and experts and a fair with 80 exhibiting enterprises and associations.

Under the slogan “10 years with you”, this unique meeting in southern Europe celebrated its tenth edition, demonstrating its consolidation as a leading event for the city’s sizeable and dynamic foreign community. It is an initiative organised by Barcelona City Council through its Directorate for International Economic Promotion.

The Deputy Mayor for Economy, Tax, Economic Promotion and Tourism, Jordi Valls, visited the fair in the morning and noted the success of this year’s event, “which shows its consolidation and Barcelona’s positioning as an open and welcoming city that attracts and retains the finest professionals”.

Sharing our model of support for international talent

The Deputy Mayor also emphasised the desire for “the city to head the cooperation and collaboration of a network of leading cities and territories in programmes to attract and retain talent”. To that end, this year saw the first ever Cities for Talent Meeting take place with 25 representatives from 17 cities and regions, all experts in policies and measures to attract and retain international talent.

This was held over two days. The first was an intense day of work with various workshops, lectures and visits. Over the course of the morning, participants shared good practices, discussed challenges and joint solutions and established collaboration between territories.

The next day saw representatives attend Barcelona International Community Day for a first-hand experience of the event, which is the culmination of the work carried out by Barcelona City Council to facilitate the arrival and integration of talent in the city.

This was a unique opportunity to boost the city’s position as an attractive and welcoming city for talent, and to create a space for exchange, dialogue and cooperation with other leading cities looking to learn from our model and share knowledge in this sphere.

The participants in Cities for Talent represented Berlin, Biscay, Brno, Copenhagen, Eindhoven, Emilia Romagna, Scotland, Estonia, Gothenburg, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Lund, Milan, Munich, Oslo and Utrecht.