Enrique Cerezo, President of EGEDA and the
Atlético de Madrid
, stressed the importance in the future of Spain of culture and sport during his speech at the business summit ‘Spanish companies leading the future’ of the CEOE.
“Culture and sport play an extremely important role in the future of the country. It is necessary that both be valued as a great industry. That intellectual property rights are protected and there is zero tolerance for piracy, that financing and fiscal objectives are improved and that we work on the audiovisual literacy of our young people, ”he declared.
Cerezo reflected this importance with data: “Culture and Sport are a great engine for the recovery of the economy and employment, we can say that they together represent 5.4% of Spanish GDP”.
“Together they generate more than 900,000 jobs and amount to about 160,000 companies whose main economic activity is culture and sport. There is also a great connection with tourism. Both sectors generate 23,500 million euros per year for Spanish tourism, “he added.
He also defended the contribution of culture during the recent confinement as a consequence of the coronavirus health crisis: “For millions of people, it would not have been the same to spend these months of confinement without having been able to have almost unlimited access to our immense volume of films , music, books or video games. Culture has allowed us to alleviate, and much, the consequences of confinement ”.
Cerezo appealed to fight piracy: “There continues to be great contempt on the part of certain individuals and organizations, who continue to systematically violate the legitimate rights of holders of audiovisual rights. During the pandemic piracy has increased by 30% ”.
“There is a minimum annual damage to the culture and sports industries of around 3,000 million euros. Creators and industry could, in a scenario without piracy, create around 20,000 direct and 100,000 indirect jobs. The state stops entering almost 700 million euros annually annually due to illegal access to content“, argument.