The Diplomat
The Spanish Exporters and Investors Club is calling on public authorities to prioritize business internationalization policies in the face of the decline in merchandise exports in 2020.
In a note distributed by the Club, its president, Antonio Bonet, emphasizes that, according to the latest foreign trade data, in just twelve months they have gone back four years.
Spanish exports of goods totaled 261,175.5 million euros last year, 10% less than in the previous year, which is the worst year-on-year record since 2009.
“Exports performed very well between 2010 and 2019, although in recent years their growth had slowed down; but the fall in exports in 2020 means returning to levels close to those of 2016,” explains Antonio Bonet.
The reduction in exports of goods in Spain (-10.0%) has been greater than that of exports in the Eurozone as a whole (-9.1%) and in countries such as Germany (-9.3%) and Italy (-9.7%), although it has been less than in France (-16.3%) or the United Kingdom (-14.6%).
“We are concerned that a tenth of the export of goods has been lost, especially because in the short term competition in international markets is going to be very high and it does not seem likely that we are going to recover the lost ground soon,” Bonet adds.
“Nevertheless,” he adds, “the fact that exports increased by almost 1% in the month of December is an indication that the foreign sector could contribute in 2021 to our country’s economic recovery.
In this context, and to strengthen the international dynamism of Spanish companies, the Exporters and Investors Club calls on the Government to give greater relevance to business internationalization in the various initiatives it has recently launched, such as the Plan for the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience of the Spanish Economy and the Foreign Action Strategy 2021-2024.
“A state policy on internationalization is needed to revitalize the foreign sector as an engine of growth for the Spanish economy,” says Antonio Bonet.
On a positive note, the Exporters and Investors Club points to the 4.1% increase in the number of regular exporters in 2020 (those who have exported goods consecutively for at least the last four years), to 55,133 companies.
However, the entity considers that this is still a relatively small figure considering the size of the Spanish economy and its internationalization potential. “Just 500 companies are responsible for more than 55% of total Spanish exports of goods,” Bonet recalls.
