The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, and the Vice President for Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, took advantage of their speech to the almost 250 internationals gathered at the Spain Investors Day (SID) economic forum yesterday to send an optimistic message about Spain’s chances of overcoming the crisis generated by the COVID-19.
“The Spanish economy is solid and reliable”, said González Laya during the closing ceremony of the 11th edition of Spain Investors Day, held since Wednesday in Madrid and which brought together 248 international investors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates with the main executives from 46 listed Spanish companies.
According to the minister, Spain has been hit harder by the crisis than “other countries around us” because of the fall in tourism, but, as happened after joining the EU or with the financial crisis of 2008, “we were able and will be able to overcome the difficulties again”. To this end, she said, “as the ideas (of the government to overcome the crisis) are very clear, so are the measures, beyond the noise generated in democracies, and in ours it is generated quite a lot because it is very vibrant”.
González Laya also pointed out that “Spain leads investment in green hydrogen, the deployment of the 5G network and is a powerhouse in infrastructure” and that “there are 12,500 international companies established in our country”. She also admitted that Spain “needed a major transformation before (the crisis) and was already immersed in it”, and that therefore not only will it not start from scratch, but it will be necessary to “accelerate our efforts to move forward and transform”.
At the same event, the Secretary of State for Trade and President of the ICEX, Xiana Méndez, said that by 2021 “international trade is expected to increase by 7.2%”, in line with the recovery of Spanish exports, which “in October 2020 increased by 8.7% compared to the same period the previous year, which shows a clear recovery in the second half of 2020”.
Calviño: “2021 will be the year of Spain’s recovery and transformation”
The second and final day of the forum began with a conference by the Third Vice-President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, who said the government is “committed” to making 2021 “the year of recovery and transformation of Spain”, with 7% growth, without taking into account the investment plan and European funds.
“This does not mean that economic recovery will be easy, but we do have the necessary tools to combat the COVID crisis”, continued Calviño, who said that during the health crisis, the Government “acted quickly and flexibly, creating support elements for companies, households and individuals” that have avoided structural damage to the economy and the productive fabric”. Furthermore, she added, the recent approval of the General State Budget “gives stability and confidence to international investors”.
The Vice-president also recalled that the Resilience and Recovery Plan drawn up by the Government in compliance with the EU Recovery Plan will represent an “opportunity” to modernise the country in terms of digitalisation, ecological transition, gender equality and social and territorial cohesion, and will involve investments of more than 70 billion up to 2023 from European funds, as well as helping to mobilise a “significant” volume of private investment of around 500 billion euros, which will allow for potential growth of 2% of GDP.
