Spain welcomes 50 ministerial delegations to define the future of the Digital Economy at OECD Ministerial Conference

A total of around a thousand people will gather from 13 to 15 December at the Expomeloneras Convention Centre in Meloneras, Gran Canaria, to discuss and analyse global action strategies for a sustainable and inclusive digital future.

Confirmed authorities

The Ministerial Conference, jointly organised by the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation, through the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, the Government of the Canary Islands and the OECD, will be attended by several OECD member countries and other invited countries such as Brazil, Bulgaria, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Peru, Romania and Ukraine.

For its part, the business sector will be represented by leading international companies such as Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Amazon, Telefónica, Meta, Johnson & Johnson and L'Oreal, as well as by Spanish digitalisation employers' associations and SMEs from both mainland Spain and from the Canary Islands.

International consensus on digital rights in society

In meetings and panel discussions at the Ministerial Conference, political representatives from around the world will discuss the opportunities and risks of technology and its impact on the global economy. In the words of the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (SEDIA), Carme Artigas, the aim is "to reach a common understanding, to adopt a declaration that sets out guidelines on how to move forward in a digital future, and to establish an international consensus on digital rights in society".

Spain's digital, inclusive and humanist transformation has positioned the country as an international benchmark thanks to the strategic vision of Digital Spain, the sectoral plans and the investments and reforms included in the National Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. Additionally, the approval of the Charter of Digital Rights and all the work that Spain has been doing since 2021 in this area have been decisive in culminating in this multilateral meeting - the first on European territory, following in the footsteps of the previous meetings held in Canada (1998), South Korea (2008) and Mexico (2016). In the words of its president, Ángel Víctor Torres, the Canary Islands have thereby become a "global benchmark for digitalisation" and are positioned on the map as a digital destination on the road to a sustainable, inclusive and competitive digital transformation.

Main themes

The ministerial meetings and panel discussions taking place during the summit will serve to define strategies for global action, organised in four main blocks:

• "Digital enablers of the global economy"
• "Building better societies"
• "Putting people first"
• "Harnessing the power of AI and emerging technologies"

In the words of the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Spain to the OECD, Manuel Escudero, these issues reflect "the shift that this Ministerial Conference represents within the OECD in the digital approach, as we are moving from a defensive one in which the main elements were network security and misinformation and misleading information, to a positive one with the objective of looking towards the present and the future and all the opportunities the network and AI provide".

Updated agenda

Today, Tuesday 13 December, the event will kick off with the "Stakeholder Day". The day will open at 9am (local time) with a panel of OECD stakeholders, which will be opened by SEDIA, Carme Artigas, and the OECD Deputy Secretary-General. At the end of the session, SEDIA will meet the media in the press area of the ExpoMeloneras space at 9.45am.

The day will continue with parallel sessions in which representatives from the business sector, civil society, social agents and the technical community will discuss the inclusion of the Latin American vision in the digital transformation, the importance of high-quality connectivity and the different national strategies for disruptive technologies, among other topics of interest.

On 14 December, following a welcome address by the First Vice-President of the Government of Spain and Minister for the Economy and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, and the Secretary-General of the OECD, Mathias Cormann, high-level open sessions will be held. At 11am, the two will hold a press conference at the entrance to Expomeloneras. No streaming will be available.

At 3.15pm, a group photo with authorities, ministers and heads of delegation will be taken at the main entrance of the conference centre.

Under the framework of the "Canary Islands Digitalisation Month", eight thematic sessions will simultaneously be held in the ExpoMeloneras Auditorium, with the aim of continuing to deepen the path travelled to date in terms of digital transformation and the challenges and trends of the future. The recently approved Law on Startups, My Citizen Folder, blockchain, European initiatives to support technological entrepreneurship and the Canary Islands as a pole of attraction for digital talent will be some of the topics discussed.

This parallel agenda, the outcome of collaboration between the Government of the Canary Islands and the Government of Spain, will feature top-level speakers such as the Secretary General for Digital Administration, Juan Jesús Torres, the Director of the Canary Islands Agency for Research, Innovation and the Information Society, Carlos Navarro, and the Spanish Ambassador to the OECD, Manuel Navarro. These sessions will be open to the general public, who will be required to register on the OECD Ministerial Conference registration website.

The closing events of the 4th OECD Ministerial Conference on the Digital Economy will take place on Tuesday 15 December, during which the results of the meeting will be presented, the declaration of the ministerial meeting will be made public, and the conclusions of the ministerial meetings will be published. A joint closing press conference will be held at 4.15pm between the Government of the Canary Islands, SEDIA and the OECD. This media event will be broadcast via streaming.

Furthermore, taking advantage of the unique framework of this sector meeting in Gran Canaria, two important forums have been organised: the D9+ meeting, chaired by Spain and attended by the most digitised countries in Europe - Belgium, Spain, Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic and Sweden; and the B9+, a meeting point for nine D9+ business entities.

Applications for conference registration can be made via the OECD Registration link.

Other information of interest

Available:

• Interview space
• Press room for work.

WIFI for the press:

• User: OECDIGITALPRESS
• Password: pressoecdigital2022
• To connect live to the panels online, you must log in on the OECD website.

Non official translation