The former president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce Antoni Negre i Villavecchia (Barcelona, 1931) has died this Tuesday. A prominent member of the Catalan bourgeoisie, he chaired the Chamber from 1991 to 2002. The institution has valued his work to “defend the general interests of the economy” and his commitment to making La Llotja de Mar in Barcelona its corporate headquarters.
The Minister of Business and Labor of the Generalitat, Roger Torrent, He has lamented his death in a tweet in which he has described him as a “professional committed to the country’s economy.”
I regret the death of Antoni Negre, president of the @cambrabcn between 1991 and 2002, and also from @cambrescat i d’Eurocambres. Professional commitment to the country’s economy, he will help lay the foundations for the current success of @Fira_Barcelona. My condolences to the family and friends.
– Roger Torrent i Ramió ? (@rogertorrent) February 22, 2022
Retired from active life due to an unfortunate domestic accident that left him in an induced coma for several months, Negre had a decisive influence on the fate of the Chamber, an organization that the employers were suspicious of.
It was also one of the promoters of the growth of the Fira de Barcelona, threatened by the Madrid-based IFEMA and by the struggles carried out by the two administrations that wanted to dominate it: on the one hand, the Generalitat de Catalunya, headed by Jordi Pujol, and on the other another Barcelona City Council, of which Pasqual Maragall was the mayor. One of the entities created during his mandate was the Consorci de Promoció Turística de Barcelona in 1993, today with the Barcelona Turisme label. In addition to the Chamber, the City Council and the Barcelona Promoció Foundation formed part of this entity.
After a first term, he renewed the position in the Chamber in 1994 until 1998 and in the following elections of the chamber body. He in turn was president of the Council of Chambers from 1991 to 2002. From 1996 to the end of 1998 he was appointed president of Eurochambers, the association that brings together more than 1,200 European chambers of commerce in Brussels.
In 2003, the then ‘president’ of the General Government, Jordi Pujol, awarded him the Gold Medal of the Chamber of Commerce, and in November 2006 he received the gold medal of the Council of Chambers.
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Negre was a lawyer, economist and son of an old saga of exchange and stockbrokers from Barcelona, well known in the 50s and 60s of the last century.
In 1959 he founded with his family a company for the manufacture of auxiliary materials for automobiles and, later, Cables de Comunicación SA. He held various positions as an executive, including that of managing director of Banco de Vizcaya in Catalonia (1976-93) and president of Banca Catalana for three years. Later he was president of the Chamber, after Josp Maria Figueras, who was from 1979 to 1990.