Foreign Minister María Soledad Alvear:
“The Biobio region has been visionary in planting the challenge of becoming a protagonist of science applied to Life”

What benefits can the Chilean government, and especially the Foreign Ministry, expect with the convening of the Forum in Chile?

The Global Biotechnology Forum 2004 will be, without doubt, an important milestone in our government’s strategy to incorporate science and technology into the national development process.

We understand that through its incorporation, we will provide an important element to strengthen our country’s interest in scientific
research, reinforcing the development of new technology centers, especially in the biotechnology field, to transform eventually the productive base of Chile and improve in this way our exploitation processes, making sustainable use of our natural resources.

With this initiative, the Foreign Ministry, considers that from an international perspective, our country establishes its central position in this area.

Today, there are thousands of scientists, business people, and civil servants from the entire world who have received messages that associate this potent theme of Biotechnology with the name of our country.

Even more importantly are the numerous consults and answers that have been received from universities, companies, and professional associations, among others, which constitute an important indicator of how we can establish ourselves in one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy.

In Concepción, national business leaders and researchers will have the opportunity to demonstrate to visitors from the entire world the advances achieve and the projects being developed in the country, and obviously this will be a potent invitation to join us in these initiatives. For our part, we have already selected between 30 and 40 Chilean projects for this task.

I believe that a dynamic environment will be generated in the Concepción Forum with the presence, in one single location, of the principal world scientists, international research centers, and largest companies linked to biotechnology. This environment will be fertile ground for collecting the fruits of this action, which will certainly translate into an important impulse for the country, Latin America, y a singular opportunity for regional cooperation.

Our institutions, companies, politicians, scientists, professors, and students will be able to share and learn, thanks to contact with scientists of the stature of Nobel- Prize winners Werner Arber (Medicine 1978), Robert Huber (Chemistry 1988) and Sir Paul Nurse (Medicine 2001), or with researchers like Yang Huanming (Genomic Institute of Beijing) and Ananda Chakrabarty (USA). Indeed, it becomes a unique opportunity for our country to share with the best of world science.

As President of the National Organizing Committee of the Biotechnology Forum, I am sure that, together with Chilean business leaders, the people of Concepción and the other Ministries and the UNIDO, we will achieve very positive results and benefits that will improve our own capacities.

The Bio Bio region established as one of its pathways, in its
Regional Development Strategy, the strengthening of Biotechnology. Do you believe that it is possible that a region of our country could really become a pole of development?

I firmly believe so. The city of Concepción and the Bio Bio region are working with great professionalism and all their effort to offer a successful Forum, and their actions form a part of one of the Foreign Ministry’s objectives, which is to demonstrate the benefits
of Chilean foreign policy in the regions.

The region counts with a Center of Applied Biotechnology in construction at the Universidad de Concepción as well as with other regional research centers and with diverse private companies that are leaders in the country in the development of forestry and food
products.

In this sense, coinciding with the words of the Intendent Jaime Tohá, who in Vienna – during the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)- declared that maybe the real added value of this initiative is the installation in the region of a biotechnology industry that will permit us to have the capacity to produce physical
goods as well as be generators and exporters of knowledge and experience.

The Bio Bio region is going all out to obtain the maximum benefit from this Global Biotechnology Forum.

The Region is an area rich in natural resources, with universities and
research centers that make it a small, yet innovative community, which is key for the utilization of biotechnology as tool for achieving progress.

Indeed, the Bio Bio region has been visionary in planting the challenge of becoming a protagonist in science applied to life. It is with this goal in mind that several financing grants have been established to execute numerous research projects in this area, many of which are already producing concrete results.

The construction of the first Biotechnology Center of the country, financed by the Regional Government with a budget of over two billion pesos, is especially relevant.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that in Concepción, the first International Diploma in Biosecurity will be offered, with the support of international institutions, which will reinforce the existing initiative to transform this region into a pole of scientific development.