GibLink brings together Gibraltar and Marbella business communities

Gibraltar government and local businesses got together with Marbella-based entrepreneurs on Thursday last week for GibLink Marbella. The event, held at The Pool business hub, was designed to bring together business owners from both areas, following the UK-EU Treaty on Gibraltar that has removed border controls at the land frontier between the Rock and Spain.

Over 160 people attended the evening, evenly split between Gibraltar’s government and sponsor network, and The Pool’s own network of Marbella-based entrepreneurs, intermediaries and operators.

The event featured two short on-stage discussions. In the first, Sam Buxton, the Gibraltar entrepreneur behind Damex, a stablecoin infrastructure and financial services firm with a European footprint and clients worldwide, was joined by Christian Rasmusson, CEO of The Pool and a driver of the Marbella 2.0 project, in conversation with Cecilia Bravo.

Sam spoke about his experience building an internationally facing tech business from Gibraltar, while Christian set out the Marbella 2.0 story and the tech corridor linking the Málaga Tech Park with the Marbella 2.0 community and the opportunity for Gibraltar to connect into that growing tech cluster.

In the second conversation, Gemma Arias-Vasquez, Gibraltar's minister for business, spoke with Ed Allison-Wright of World Trade Center Gibraltar and Ocean Village Group. Their conversation covered the minister’s own background, to her view that the Gibraltar treaty is a positive step for business, unlocking investor confidence and drawing the Gibraltar and Spanish business communities closer together. Ed spoke to the history of Ocean Village, the successful community it has built since its launch over 20 years ago, and how that community has in turn enabled business growth in the area.

Gemma Arias-Vasquez said after the event: “GibLink Marbella exceeded our expectations, both in the numbers who joined us and in the quality of conversation on the night. It set exactly the right tone for this series and a clear sense of the opportunity now in front of us following the Treaty.

“I am very much looking forward to Manchester on 30 September and to our flagship event in London on Tuesday 20 October. Each event in this series is designed to put Gibraltar's business community directly in front of the people who can invest here, partner with us, or base operations here. Manchester gives us a strong platform in a part of the United Kingdom where the commercial links with Gibraltar are already well established and London will allow us to build on that across the wider UK market.”