<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to reopen the General Consulate of Manchester and reinforce the one in London in order to facilitate the procedures of the Spanish residents in the United Kingdom in the face of the imminent departure of this country of the EU. Likewise, new consulates will be opened in Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China.</strong></h4> This was announced yesterday by the <strong>Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Ángeles Moreno</strong>, during her appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress to explain the part concerning her department of the project of National Budget for 2019. According to Moreno, the Government will reopen the <strong>Manchester Consulate</strong>, which will be staffed with 19 employees and will help "lighten the workload of the Consulates of London and Edinburgh". The General Consulate of Manchester was closed in 2011 because of the financial crisis, after which the Spaniards who were under their jurisdiction came to depend on London and Edinburgh. In addition, Foreign Affairs will reinforce the <strong>Consulate of London</strong> (the fourth largest in the world in terms of the number of registered, about 122,500), create a <strong>task force for Brexit</strong>, dependent on the Secretariat of State for the EU and will have officials from other Ministries, and will reinforce <strong>the one-stop window </strong>for Brexit at the London Embassy. In the United Kingdom, Moreno said, there are 220,000 registered Spaniards and "many more unregistered". <h5><strong>New consulates in Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China</strong></h5> On the other hand, the undersecretary announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is going to open a second Consulate in Cuba, specifically in <strong>Camagüey </strong>- initially planned in Santiago, in the east, but finally the center of the island has been chosen because of the distribution of the Spanish colony-; and a second Consulate in Saudi Arabia (<strong>Yeddah</strong>). Also, a fifth Consulate in China will be opened, specifically in <strong>Chengdú</strong>, an important economic center of the center-west of the country, with 20 million inhabitants and that already houses consular offices of four countries of the EU, Germany, France, Poland and Czech Republic. Spain already has Consulates in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Canton. The opening of the new Consulates of Yeddah and Chengdú, she said, is due to the increase in visa applications, "in large part of entrepreneurs who want to come to Spain to bring investment and create wealth and jobs". Apart, the Ministry will close the Consulates of Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Genoa (Italy) and Alexandria (Egypt) and will reconvert the Consulate General of Washington in the Consular Section. <h5><strong>External staff and Foreign Service</strong></h5> On the other hand, Moreno said that it is working with the Ministries of Finance and Public Function to achieve, by the end of February, a solution to the problem of <strong>the remuneration of Spanish labor personnel</strong> <strong>abroad</strong>, whose salaries have been frozen for ten years, “in some cases below the minimum inter-professional salary of the country" (specifically in the Consulate of Sydney). Also, Moreno lamented that the <strong>Foreign Service currently has "with fewer diplomats than ten years ago”, despite the fact that the tasks have "multiplied considerably".</strong> "We have gone from having less than one million Spaniards abroad fifteen years ago to 2.7 million today”, she warned, adding "17 million trips by Spaniards for tourism and work" and a "business presence that multiplies more and more". <strong>"With the resources we currently have, it is impossible to get as far as we would like"</strong>, admitted the undersecretary, who announced that the Ministry's intention is to reinforce the current staff to "gradually" strengthen the external presence that corresponds to "a country of the size and weight of Spain".
