The real estate sector is one of the pillars of society, says new FIABCI World President

Jul 05, 2021 Latest News

It is an honor to have the opportunity to address you all today, as the new president of FIABCI, the organization that for seven decades has been the voice of the real estate industry throughout the world. And this is the very first thing I’d like to point out today: Real estate is not a profession, is not a sector of the economy; it’s even something more than an “industry”: it is one of the pillars the society is based on.

Over these seven decades, the real estate industry has seen many trials and tribulations: Now we are all concerned with the social and economic impact of the Covid-19 crisis, but we’ve been through other crises and difficult scenarios since June 2^nd, 1951. And I’m sure we will navigate through this one as we’ve done before.

All our economies, all our societies, face a common challenge these days: The challenge of sustainable development. The real estate industry is one of the foundations of our society is built on and we have to take our share of the world’s challenges and try to be always part of the solution.

While we should be proud of our history and accomplishments, there is more to be done. FIABCI must define a vision, future objectives for our organization, that will define the future goals.

Vision:

Global
Ambitious
Inclusive
Sustainable
Hybrid
Agile

Mission:

Introduction of Business and Networking platform
Deployment of Inclusive Education Policy
Promotion of Excellence and innovation
World-class and multiformat global events
Development of Global Real Estate Consultancy for Public/Private sector

This is the approach that my team and I are willing to implement during the next year.

For the past years, FIABCI-Brasil perfectly embodies the spirit of FIABCI in its annual Real Estate Excellence Awards, where excellence is recognized and celebrated. The winning projects demonstrate the pinnacle of achievement in planning and design, construction quality, as well as environmental and community benefits.

Let me finish today with a few words about my home country, Andorra, because building is primarily about houses: The first thing that our ancestors built was a house, a home, a shelter, a place to live in; and in Andorra there’s something very particular, very characteristic, in the value we place on houses. In Andorra people don’t belong to a family, they belong to a house; and sometimes the name of the house -which is a popular, non-official one- is better known than the name or the surname itself. We all belong to a house, and we call people by the name of their house. Even our parliament, which is one of the oldest parliaments in Europe and in the world, is called La Casa de la Vall, which means The House of the Valley.

This tells you the capital role that the house plays within the Andorran society: We are a country of houses and - as I said - our first commitment as an industry was to build houses.

It is from this perspective, from these values of tradition and persistence, that I want to contribute to building a sustainable future for one of the oldest businesses in the history of humankind. The business that we all share here today. Our business, the business of FIABCI: the real estate industry, the real estate world.

By Jordi Ribó

FIABCI World President 2021-2022

FIABCI World President Jordi Ribó was the special guest of the latest FIABCI-Brasil weekly column in one of the biggest newspapers in the country, O Estado de São Paulo.