The Uniqueness Of Juan Roig

I come from Portugal, where it has installed a general disappointment in the population. The crisis is not only economic but also moral, is so great that the reelected president, Cavaco Silva, has taken much of the criticism of his countrymen.

Considered as a "lost decade" the two governments of the Socialist José Socrates and the Conservative cabinet three years that preceded them. At his inauguration last Wednesday, he said something that might sound to us Valencia: "We can not favor large investments, they say that we are not able to finance that do not contribute to productivity growth and that have an effect residual time and job creation. "

Could not something similar be said here about Terra Mitica or? Gora, through the City of Light and other costly ephemeral events?

The funny thing is that the business press Lusa on Friday, as the newspaper Oje, as always pending what happens in Spain, picked up the news that "the Mercadona supermarket group has entered the commercial history billings exceed the English Court, "the great paradigm of sale to the public.

This success of the business work of Juan Roig has coincided in time with the recognition that his fortune is the fifth of Spain, made by Forbes magazine.

No wonder, then, that President Francisco Camps have sought the photo with the owner of Mercadona. With pious wondered irony in these pages yesterday Tortola Amparo that which of them suited the snapshot graph. Obviously, they are always politicians who need to associate their image of widely different groups, from young immigrants and entrepreneurs from pensioners. But then listen to what they have to say?

It would be interesting to know what the president said so little accommodating a character like Juan Roig, one hundred representatives of civil society that sent Juan Carlos I a study on the transformation that needs to Spain. It stated that our country has a serious "loss of competitiveness in talent and technology" and "has not achieved the proper development of the knowledge economy to compete in sophisticated goods and services with the leading countries, but neither can do it emerging economies in costs of goods and services of less value. "

Indeed, Zapatero wasted no time in calling on employers who signed the document to take the picture with them. Always the picture.

Juan Roig is a unique character, not by anecdote not to go to all these solicitations do with power or tie when the Government calls for casual attire. What is your impression really defining business: creation of 1,500 jobs last year, the fixed nature of these jobs, increase productivity and link to it an increase in salaries and benefit sharing, ...

This is called innovation. Also something quite unusual: the courage to explain their secrets in public without fear of being imitated, perhaps because when others try to plagiarize the walk and in some other invention, thus anticipating its competitors.

If only for these values ​​and for his courage in putting them into practice, if there were half a dozen businessmen in the court of John Roig, surely the future of our society would be more hopeful.