Agreement between Barcelona and Tel Aviv to promote the “smart city”

The meeting was attended by Sònia Recasens, Deputy Mayor for Economy, Enterprise and Employment, and the second in charge of the Spanish embassy in Israel, Santiago Gómez Acebo. Founded in 1909, Tel Aviv is the second largest city in Israel. It’s the country’s economic and cultural capital; and where not just its big companies’ corporate headquarters but also its prestigious research and development centres are based.

Barcelona, twinned with Tel Aviv since 1988

Mayor Trias told his opposite number Ron Huldai that the Barcelona delegation had travelled to Israel together with the President of the Autonomous Government “to sign collaboration agreements, but above all so that we can work together from now on; we have come to promote and facilitate agreements of the City of Barcelona and its companies and research centres with Israeli companies”. Trias said that although Barcelona is very well known worldwide as an attractive city for tourism, “our capital is a city of culture, knowledge, creativity, innovation and wellbeing; and for years we have been promoting an ambitious strategy to transform Barcelona into a leading smart city internationally”. Xavier Trias and Sònia Recasens invited Mayor Huldai and the city of Tel Aviv to participate actively in the upcoming Mobile World Congress, to be held in February.
Barcelona has been twinned with Tel Aviv and Gaza since 1998. Since then, relations with Tel Aviv have strengthened and there have been contacts and collaborations at both the political and technical levels. Throughout these years, there have also been technical contacts between the two cities with visits by various delegations of the Tel Aviv City Council aimed at tackling economic and urban development subjects, as well as youth matters and others.