In the opening speech of the Test & Invest event organized by the national government and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), President Luis Lacalle Pou appeared before a business audience made up of potential investors and with a strong presence of foreign audiences.
On stage at the Punta del Este Convention Center, the president asserted that “Uruguay’s vocation is to become a Latin American hub” and added: “and if it is true that the world is a handkerchief, not just Latin America.”
The president assured that together with the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technologies (CUTI) and the Pro-Secretariat of the Presidency they are working to “attract talent from abroad, Uruguayan or foreign, who come to live and work in our country.”
“National talent cannot be replaced, everything can be done in infrastructure, but if there is no talent, things are not achieved,” said the president.
Globalization is, in his view, the most important trigger for Uruguay to become a leading country. “It doesn’t matter so much where you live and work because the world got smaller,” he said, adding that the covid-19 pandemic accelerated this phenomenon.
“With responsible freedom, Uruguay was attractive for many people to come and invest and stay,” he said. Along this path, Lacalle Pou also highlighted the arrival of foreigners who bring “their best practices to the country.” The president also emphasized the country’s good infrastructure and insisted on national stability and long-term laws, among other qualities, which make for “fertile ground for these global undertakings.”
The president highlighted, in turn, other virtues such as the security, tranquility and friendliness of the Uruguayans. In this sense, he stressed that even in the business world “everything ends up being a matter of human feelings, the last impulse ceases to be rational, it comes from the viscera,” he said and invited visitors to try the experience of living Uruguay . “I have 851 days left in government, if this is organized in three years and there is another president here, without prejudice to the political party, they will have all the guarantees,” he said, concluding: “Uruguay can be a hub because they can think long term”.
