The President of the Republic, Luis Lacalle Pou, participated in the fifth edition of Kick Off, an international summit that brought together investors and finance experts for two days, in Punta del Este. There the president gave his vision of “why Uruguay is at an exact moment for the world” and why “it is a good place to invest.”
To begin his talk, he asked who were Uruguayans and many of the hundreds of people in the Enjoy Convention Center auditorium raised their hands. She greeted the compatriots and also the foreigners, and recognized that being invited he understood that talking to investors would serve him more than themfrom the point of view of the opportunities that its presence can generate for Uruguay.
“The fact that they are here is already a generator of foreign exchange, tourism and diffusion. The networking they do will also serve to advance their businesses, exchange and copy ideas,” he said.
The mandatary spoke of predictability, control and respect for agreements. And for that he made an analogy of Uruguay as a tree that has firm roots and that, despite the changes of governments, they only carry out “pruning”, but without cutting the tree from scratch.
“I can assure you that if you are here at the March 2025 Kick Off, whoever the president is, he will talk about the same tree and the same roots. It may be that he is pruning differently, but the tree will continue to be the himself, the one who will be shadowing and protecting his money, his future and his investments”, he highlighted.
Ines Guimaraens
Lacalle Pou with Verónica Rey, organizer of Kick Off 2023.
Work from the airport or the beach
At the event you attended Coffee & Business, Lacalle Pou spoke about the migratory processes promoted by the new generations who do not rule out living in different parts of the world and by those who can telework. She said that the world “is getting smaller” and that is why it is very normal for foreigners to settle in Uruguay while working for another country.
To explain this, he spoke of the dinner he recently had with his ex-partner Lorena Ponce de León at La Paloma, in a restaurant where he talked with several foreigners.
“In his work (in the world of finance) the face to face (face to face, in Spanish) is very important, because knowing who you deposit your investments with is important. But the work itself is done from a cell phone in an airport or under an umbrella on the beach. Work has to be accompanied by other things and that is what is virtuous about our country in this uncertain world.“, he added.
A “weird habit”
To talk about the security of Uruguay as a country in which to invest, he maintained that the Constitution “is very guaranteeing” and that the balance between the Executive and the Legislative Powers “are very well done.” In addition, he stressed that political power is not involved in the Judiciary, which was received with loud applause from those present.
“We have a rare custom: we respect the Constitution, the laws and the contracts,” he assured, adding that Uruguayan society, with its controls and ways of coexistence, knows that there is an “inviolable sacred” that makes Uruguay different as a nation, which It seems very important for sectors like the one he addressed, in which customers place money and trust, as he said,
To end his speech, he highlighted: “Uruguay is a country that gives security to those who want to stay, to those who want to develop their families and to those who want to invest”.
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“Work has to be accompanied by other things and that is what makes our country virtuous in this uncertain world,” said the president.
