Words from President Juan Manuel Santos during the Industrial Merit Award to Laboratorios Lafrancol
Bogotá, 14 jun (SIG). “In 1911 your great-uncle, Esther (Ventura de Rendon, President of Lafrancol), came from France and founded a company. In 1911, my great-uncle, Mr. Eduardo Santos, also founded a small company whose name is El Tiempo.
Both companies are celebrating their 100th year anniversary this year, but yours is more successful because the Ventura family continues to command it, on the other hand the Santos family does not.
I want to congratulate you with all of my heart. And it is a great honor for me to be able to award this Industrial Merit Award to Lafrancol, to all the personnel that works there and especially to you.
I am witness to the tenacity and passion you have given this company. That is why it is a success.
When I was Minister of Commerce, 20 years ago, Esther would request an appointment every other day, to defend the national industry, the national pharmaceutical companies, against a very hard competition, since we were opening the economy to the competition.
Perhaps there is no harder competition than that of the multinational pharmaceutical companies. And that is why that defense that you made for the national pharmaceutical companies; you were right and I believe that history has proven you right, that it is important to maintain a good and healthy national industry.
Also, when I was Minister of Finance we also had many meetings about this same subject. And that is why that company is now 100 years old, a company that, as it has been said here, generates close to 2,000 direct jobs and more than 8,000 indirect jobs, has around 125 million USD in sales, but more than anything has a great spirit and a great vision for the future.
That is why I believe that in 100 more years, they will be celebrating the 200th year anniversary of Lafrancol. Because what you have said here is of great importance.
Biotechnology Policy
What a coincidence: this morning here in the room where the cabinet meets, we had a “CONPES” (Consejo Nacional de Politica, Economia y Social) meeting and we approved the Biotechnology Policy. How to make of the biotechnology one of the locomotives in the sciences and technology.
And the reason we are doing it, is because common sense tells us that it is what corresponds to us, the Colombians.
And why do I say that it is what corresponds to the Colombians? When one analyses the global markets, the Stock Exchange from New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo, and one sees that in the last 30 years, 25 years, the companies that have acquired the most value were the ones that were engaged in computer systems, and the revolution in communications and systems.
That is why Mr. Carlos Slim or Mr. Bill Gates took away the first place from the richest in the world, from those great industrialists or great bankers.
That is why things are changing rapidly. The companies that are now acquiring more value, the only ones that really did not suffer in the great crisis of 2008 and 2009 were the biotechnology companies. They were the only ones that did not loose value.
And if one analyzes this situation in the stock market, like the great revolution that the world will suffer in the next few years, it will be precisely in this field of biotechnology, which is going to change our lives much more than the communications technology has changed our lives.
One tries to imagine how the world without cell phones or Ipads would be, and we would say, it is impossible to live without them. We will live in a very different world than the one we are living in due to biotechnology.
And there are people that say with all certainty, and companies and investigation centers, that 90 percent of the technology that we will use in the next 10 years has not been invented yet, that this is the growth rate and the change we are living in, especially because of biotechnology.
On the other hand, if one analyzes the richness in this country, we see the evidence of biodiversity. We are the richest country by square mile in biodiversity.
And it is there where the common sense will say that one has to connect this with what is happening in the world, that revolution, with the richness that one has here in our hands in our country, how to do it. Many people have asked themselves that question.
A friend of mine that works in MIT, Juan Enriquez Cabot, who is a multi-millionaire today because he created a fund to invest in biotechnology companies.
I asked the president of McKinsey who came to give a speech two weeks ago to the Cabinet and the government. He told me, this is the most interesting and most important question that you have to respond to: the way to bring a critical mass that will generate all that you have mentioned, research, technological development, and that will generate sufficient capacity, so that we can take advantage of biotechnology.
And when I saw you right now, defending this with such enthusiasm, I told myself, it is no wonder you lasted 100 years and no wonder you will last another 100; because you are on the right path. That is the future.
And I am glad that our Colombian companies, because we also have to bring, we were mentioning an institute in Boston, that is called the Broad Institute, which is a combination of Harvard and MIT, that we should bring them here, for that reason, exactly to develop biotechnology projects.
Then I was telling my ministers that they need to get in touch with the Broad Institute, that they need to bring it here.
But that is what I tell you, Esther, get in touch with them, because it is better for a private company to do it, with the Research centers, bring them, you will have all the support from the Government.
There will be a lot of funding, 10 percent of all the royalties will go to science and technology, to projects such as this.
And I hope that your company, who is already leader in many sectors, will be converted in the point of the spear in the field of biotechnology, because that is the future of Colombia.
That is why I congratulate you with all my heart. You are on the right path.
It is great Esther, to be able to have given your company this award. Count with our support, continue with enthusiasm, and on our part we will always there firm to help you.
Thank you, very much.
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