Miquel Valls, businessman and former president of the Chamber of Barcelona dies
Beloved Chamber Founder of IWEC
The IWEC Foundation family mourns the passing of our founding chamber president and sends our deepest sympathies to his family and his colleagues.
“We honor the memory of President Miguel Valls whose vision and initiative led to the creation of IWEC, an organization that has contributed immeasurably to women business owners by forming a global network which helps them strengthen their businesses domestically and gain and expand access to international markets. President Valls will be greatly missed and his spirit will continue to infuse the work of IWEC and take the organization to higher heights. Ambassador Ruth A. Davis (Ret.) Chair, IWEC
About Mr. Valls:
The former president of the Cambra de Barcelona, Miquel Valls, who presided over this body for 17 years, assumed the role of spokesperson for the business that demanded better financing and more investments for Catalonia, maintaining a politically moderated mood.
Died at the age of 75, Valls said goodbye to the Presidency of the Cambra just three months ago after seeing how an openly independence candidate, headed by Joan Canadell, was the winner of the first elections held in the Chamber since 2010 .
In his last public act, the businessman and economist avoided any criticism of the winning candidacy, which was not his favorite and was composed of representatives of SMEs, and made a closed defense of the great Catalan company.
Considered a representative of the Catalan economic establishment, Miquel Valls was chaining terms as president of the Chamber of Commerce in a few years marked, in a first stage, by the debate about the fit of Catalonia in Spain and the regional financing model and, later, by the independence process.
In the political sphere, the businessman always showed a moderate and pactist mood, always maintaining a good relationship with the different administrations.
With a long career as an entrepreneur in the metallurgical sector, Vall s has stood out for his defense of a fairer financing for Catalonia and the need for companies to opt for internationalization and export, demanding again and again a better and greater Infrastructure investment.
Valls assumed for the first time the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce in 2002 and was re-elected for the last time in October 2015, in an extraordinary plenary held on the initiative of the executive committee before the doubts created about the internal operation of the entity and its draft future.
