Moventia attended the Gran Encuentro Expansión Catalunya for the second year in a row, a benchmark event for the business community at the Recinto Modernista de Sant Pau (Barcelona). The slogan for the event this year was “Growth, investment, innovation”. The company once again played a major role in the debate on the economic and industrial future of the region.
During the course of the event, Josep Maria Martí, Chairman of Moventia, took part in the round table discussion entitled “The keys to economic growth: a powerful and diversified industrial sector”, alongside José Alberto Carbonell (Port of Barcelona), Sofía Rodríguez (Banco Sabadell), Daniel Tugues (Veolia) and Inka Guixà (La Farga). The debate was moderated by Juande Portillo, an economic and political affairs writer for Expansión.
Josep Maria Martí highlighted the essential role of mobility as a driving force for the economy. “Without mobility, there is no economy. We’ve seen this crisis after crisis, from the pandemic to the most recent at Rodalies in 2026”, he said. He underlined the responsiveness of this sector in that regard, stressing that “Moventis, alongside other road transport operators in Catalonia, was required to offer support and ensure mobility for hundreds of thousands of people who needed to travel every day”.
The Chairman of Moventia also referred to the demographic and infrastructure planning challenge being faced by the country. “We are heading towards a population of 55 million people in Spain and 10 million in Catalonia. We have to create infrastructures and prepare ourselves for what is coming”, he said. He added that mobility growth will be especially important in metropolitan areas, saying that “the strongest growth will be seen in the second, third and fourth metropolitan rings, in the so-called ‘greater Barcelona’ area. Intercity lines are growing the fastest right now and we will need to increase road transport services by 50% because trains will be unable to absorb all this demand”.
A second part of the debate focused on the economic and geopolitical uncertainty, during which Josep Maria warned about the need to remain vigilant in such a complex scenario. Although forecasts are suggesting an increase in holiday bookings in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands for this summer (increases of almost 10% on 2025), he said that “we cannot allow ourselves to be complacent”.
He also insisted on the importance of having a stable framework in place that enables continued investment. “In response to this demand, we need legal certainty that grants us access to financing aimed at growing the fleet and maintenance capacity”. In this regard, he identified one of the biggest challenges for the sector as “continued investment with guarantees for expanding services and making progress on decarbonisation”.
Josep Maria Martí also linked this energy transformation process to a current international context full of geopolitical tensions, such as the war in the Gulf, that directly impact the price and availability of fossil fuels. “If we can unbind ourselves from fossil fuels through decarbonisation, we will be better positioned for tackling such international crisis scenarios as the one we have right now”, he concluded.
The Gran Encuentro Expansión Catalunya gathered leading companies from all over the country, such as CaixaBank, Abertis, Aena, Naturgy, BBVA, Cellnex, Endesa, Grifols, Fundación La Caixa, Indra, KPMG, Santander, Telefónica and the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB). On an institutional level, the event was officially opened by the Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, and closed by the President of the Regional Government of Catalonia, Salvador Illa.