Interview with Manuel Maestre, President of The General Council of Commercial Agents of Spain (CGAC)
How many membership companies does your organization have?
The Consejo General de Agentes Comerciales de España (General Council of Commercial Agents of Spain, CGAC) is the national organization for the commercial agency profession in Spain. Through CGAC, the interests of aprox 50.000 commercial agents (independent professionals working for an average of 3-5 principals) are represented.
What branches are the most common?
Food, furniture, construction, health, IT, jewelry or fashion and some of the most common economy sectors. It is estimated that commercial agents in Spain are generating a combined turnover of € 55 billion to 412,000 companies, most of them SMEs.
What events are you hosting for your members this spring?
CGAC promotes a Professional Job Networking on 20th of May in Málaga, with the aim of boosting employment and sales. The objective is to facilitate professional contacts to the companies that want to open their products or services to other countries or markets through commercial agents.
Also, the initiative is part of the celebration of the IUCAB Delegates Meeting being held in Málaga (Spain) on 19th to 21th May, where 18 members of European associations will meet.
Representatives of the European associations will provide information on their countries about market, amount of commission, etc. Moreover, they will get legal advice from lawyers in distribution law from many European countries. In addition, international and national companies, from all sectors, will interview commercial agents to represent their products into new markets and countries.
To conclude, this event takes place on the year of our 90th Anniversary, a very special and remarkable date for all the professional who are dedicated to sales in our country supported by our local organizations, the so called Colegios de Agentes Comerciales (as Commercial Agents local Chambers). So, Commercial Agents in Spain is celebrating 90 years since the beginning of our professional organization on a year such as 1926.
What is the most important question for IUCAB for the future according to you?
I'd say that IUCAB's active lobbying in order to ensure the position of the profession in EU is one of its most important functions. Recently, we celebrated an historic EU Commission decision: to keep the Commercial Agents Directive as it has been since 1986. We all know that the hard work of the IUCAB and Eurocommerce, with the collaboration of national associations, has been a key point in order to achieve this goal. So all members of IUCAB can be very proud of forming part of this organization, more than ever.