“I gave myself the homework of criticizing public companies, but am unmistakably aware that there must be a pragmatic and not dogmatic approach towards them”. With these words, the president of the Iberoamerican Association or Regulatory Studies, ASIER (Asociación Iberoamericana de Estudios de Regulación), Gaspar Ariño, from Spain, inaugurated the 4th Iberoamerican Convention of Economic Regulation Convention that since yesterday is being held in the country.
This activity that reunites lawyers, engineers and economists from all Iberoamerica, has as an objective, to debate about the best way to build a better regulation process in key fields like finance, telecommunication, infrastructure and energy systems. In these fields, they say, the conception of universal service must prevail for everyone.
This Convention, supported by Acedemia Centroamérica (Centroamerican Academy), the BCIE - Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica - (Centroamerican Bank of Economic Intergration) and ICE – Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad – (Costarican Electricity Institute), is organized by BLP Abogados. This is the fourth time it is held, after its earlier editions in Chile, Uruguay and Sao Paulo. In this occasion, the participants will welcome 80 exponents between lawyers, engineers and economists, that will debate based on the regulation premise, for a better market.
“The financial crisis is giving a huge protagonism to the banking regulation subject, and on the other hand, to sectors such as the energy sector which is making an impact in climate change, and also telecommunications, which are an object of specific actuations provoked by the crisis”, explained Ariño. The sessions with subjects based on public-private formulas for the construction of infrastructure are the most well-liked ones.
“For Cost Rica there’s a challenge in this area, the recent tragedies in bridges, evidence the necessity of investing in this field”, added Luis Ortiz, president of the Convention and representant of BLP Abogados. The idea of this debate was born four years ago, in academic branches of countries highly impacted by the liberalization processes like Chile, were the concept of public service a lot of times was weak” Ariño commented.
Francisco Antonio Pacheco, who arrived to the activity as transient President of Costa Rica, made an allusion to the fortune of our country that, though it does everything behind schedule, today enjoys a social construction that has not lost from its sight the importance of the universal importance of public services.
