Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ECONOMY

Barcelona to host Mobile World Congress until 2030

The Mobile World Congress, the telecom industry's biggest annual gathering, will be held in Barcelona until 2030, extending its current contract by six years, organisers said Monday.

Published: 27 June 2022 13:08 CEST
barcelona world mobile congress
The 2022 edition, which returned to its normal format, drew 61,000 participants to Barcelona. Photo: Pere Jurado/Unsplash

The event, which draws more than 100,000 people to Barcelona, has been held in Spain’s second largest city since 2006.

The existing agreement between the GSMA association that hosts the congress and local authorities ran until 2024.

“We are thrilled to announce that MWC will remain in Barcelona through to 2030,” said GSMA director general Mats Granryd said in a statement.

“Barcelona is so intertwined in the MWC experience, it’s hard for me to think about one and not the other,” he added.

The gathering was one of the first events to be cancelled in 2020 as Covid-19 started to sweep across the world.

A scaled back edition was held in 2021 in June instead of February as is usually the case, with many events staged online.

The 2022 edition, which returned to its normal format, drew 61,000 participants, far less than the over 100,000 who attended in 2019 before the pandemic hit.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

DROUGHT

Drought-hit Barcelona to ease water restrictions after rainfall

Spain's Catalonia region said Tuesday it will ease restrictions on water use for Barcelona and its surrounding area after recent rainfall allowed it to lift a drought emergency.

Published: 8 May 2024 09:07 CEST
Drought-hit Barcelona to ease water restrictions after rainfall

The announcement comes ahead of a regional election in Catalonia on Sunday in which the ruling pro-independence ERC party — which has faced criticism over its handling of the drought — is trailing in opinion polls.

Catalonia declared a drought emergency in February after water levels at reservoirs in the Mediterranean region fell below 16 percent of full capacity following nearly three years of below-average rainfall.

The measure led to tighter water use restrictions for some six million people living in a wide area including Spain’s second-city Barcelona, especially for crop irrigation, livestock farming and industry.

But recent rains in the wealthy northwestern region have boosted reserves to nearly 24 percent.

This increase in water reserves “allows us to reduce the restrictions put in place over the last three months,” Catalan government spokeswoman Patricia Plaja told a Barcelona news conference.

“The drought is not over, that is the reality. We are still facing a serious drought,” she added.

The loosened restrictions means farmers will now only have to cut the amount of water used to irrigate crops by 40 percent instead of 80 percent, while industries must reduce water use by 15 percent instead of 25 percent.

Individual use limits will be increased to 230 litres per day from 200 litres during the drought emergency.

Catalonia’s regional government said it would still go ahead with plans to install 12 mobile desalination plants on the Costa Brava, one of the tourist areas most affected by water shortages, as well as a floating desalination plant in the port of Barcelona.

SHOW COMMENTS