Spanish King inaugurates Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

King Felipe VI of Spain presided over the inauguration of the 2015 Mobile World Congress (MWC) here on Monday morning.

The King was accompanied by the Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism Miguel Soria and Barcelona mayor Javier Trias.

"Mobile technology is important to help us to build an economy which is not only competitive and productive, but one which is also fairer and which will generate greater opportunities for employment, especially among young people and those most affected by the current economic situation," said the King.

This is the 10th consecutive year that the MWC has been held in Barcelona. The four-day event is expected to attract about 90,000 people, an increase of 5,000 compared with the figure of last year.

On Sunday, John Hoffmann, the CEO of the event organizers GSMA, said 2015 would see the "biggest...widest and best" MWC in history. The congress will earn around 440 million euros (494.18 million U.S. dollars) for the host city where hotel occupation is close to 100 percent for the week, according to Hoffmann.

The flagship event for the mobile telecommunication industry is attended by about 1,900 companies, and many of them will be presenting their latest products.

The MWC also contains keynote speeches from industry luminaries such as Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, Sundar Pichai, who designed the 'Android' operating system and Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia.

The event was first held in Barcelona in 2006 and has so far created 75,000 jobs for the city.( 1 euro = 1.12 U.S. dollars) Enditem