Spain offers a broad range of investment and trade opportunities to Malta’s business community according to speakers at a seminar at the MCCEI last week.
Entitled “Business and investment opportunities in Spain”, the well-attended event was co-organised by MCCEI, the Spanish embassy and the Spanish-Maltese Chamber of Commerce. Further to the highly successful two-day visit to Malta last October by 20 senior executives of leading Spanish firms, Malta Enterprise will be organising a visit by Maltese business leaders to Spain later this year.
Peter Grima, chair of MCCEI’s internationalisation committee stated that 134 chamber members have formally registered their interest in developing or increasing their business links with Spain. Spain’s ambassador to Malta, Felipe de la Morena Casado explained that this seminar was another one of a series of events organised in Malta to “enhance the awareness between our two countries regarding business opportunities that we have in front of us. Bilateral trade flows have continued to increase, reaching a total of €280m in 2011 and showing further growth in the first three quarters of 2012. Spanish companies are present in Malta in pharmaceuticals, insurance as well as through a broad range of franchises. We also have an important Spanish-Maltese Chamber of Commerce that is proving to be instrumental in the promotion of our bilateral economic relations”.
“The Spanish government is confronting the economic crisis by fiscal consolidation, major public expenditure cuts, reforms in the labour market, social security, education, justice, public administration and banking. As our minister recently stated, these measures are about to bear fruit. Yields on Spanish government bonds are falling, underlying competitiveness has improved sharply. Exports have also been growing as is foreign presence in capital markets, while the presence of Spanish companies abroad now is expanding.
“This growing process of internationalisation of many Spanish companies, and therefore interaction with Spanish companies, can be taken as a great opportunity for Maltese firms to find their counterparts and explore new endeavours.”
In his keynote presentation entitled “Spain. Your partner in Europe: Business Opportunities” Antonio Llanos, Commercial and Economic Counsellor of the Embassy of Spain, gave a detailed account of both the current economic situation and facilities for foreign investors and exporters.
“At €1.2 trillion, Spain is the world’s 13th largest economy, the fifth largest in the EU, the seventh largest commercial services exporter worldwide (fourth in the EU), the 11th largest source of foreign investment (€500bn) and the third largest investor in Latin America after Netherlands and the US. Spain is also the ninth leading recipient of foreign direct investment (€490bn) and the seventh most open to foreign investment. Over 12,800 foreign companies have invested in Spain including 75 of the Forbes Top 100 list while inflows in 2011 were 23% above the 2010 level.”
Government’s Invest in Spain operation offered an exhaustive range of facilities to potential and existing foreign investors while its Investor Network aims to connect private equity, venture capital and corporate finance firms from all over the world with selected projects in Spain with high growth potential requiring investment above and beyond €0.5m. Support includes a personal manager, free office space at Invest in Spain access to confidential intranet and databases, and networking introductions. In addition, corporate tax rates as well as income tax on salaries earned in Spain by foreign workers are highly attractive.
Leading economic sectors with excellent prospects include information and communication technologies (ICT), renewable energies, biotechnology, aerospace, automotive, logistics and transport, environment and water. There are also 80 technology parks, hosting over 6,030 companies with strong policy support to foreign investments in research and development activities.
Tourism remains a top sector since Spain is the second biggest earner worldwide and the first in Europe, ranking fourth in arrivals. Spain’s infrastructure – ports, railways, roads, airports and airlinks have all developed massively over recent decades.
“Spain is an ideal hub to do business with North Africa,” Mr Llanos emphasised, “as there are double taxation agreements with Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as well as agreements for the protection and promotion of reciprocal investments with Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. In addition it has 16 DTAs and 19 investment protection agreements with Latin American countries.”