The Diplomat
Argentina aspires to be one of the priority destinations for projects and investments in the Plan for the Internationalisation of the Spanish economy, according to the Argentine Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, with whom he met on Friday in Santo Domingo.
The meeting took place in the margins of the meeting of Ibero-American Foreign Affairs Ministers held in the Dominican capital and, according to sources from the Argentine Foreign Ministry, Cafiero and Albares expressed their desire to deepen the strategic partnership between Spain and Argentina.
The same sources indicated that the bilateral agenda between two countries with a historic relationship was analysed during the meeting. Cafiero pointed out that Argentina recognises Spain as a permanent strategic partner, as was reaffirmed by President Alberto Fernández on his last trip to Madrid last May and a month later, when the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, visited Buenos Aires.
Cafiero placed special emphasis on the economic relations between the two countries, stating that, for the Spanish market, Argentina’s efforts are aimed not only at positioning the country as a supplier of high quality foodstuffs and agro-industrial manufactured goods, but also at taking advantage of opportunities for commercial exchange in the service sectors related to the knowledge economy.
The Foreign Minister stressed that Argentina has received long-term investments and that Spain is the “second largest investor in the country”, while local companies are having “an increasing presence in that nation, generating more jobs in both countries”.
Cafiero insisted that Argentina aspires to be one of the priority destinations for Spanish projects and investments within the framework of the Plan for the Internationalisation of the Spanish economy.
The Foreign Minister also reiterated his gratitude for Spain’s expressions of support, on both occasions, for the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Club and for the donation of more than two million vaccines to Argentina against the coronavirus during 2021.
Albares invited his Argentinean colleague to visit Spain in the first quarter of 2022 and both agreed to continue working together to face the health, social and economic challenges posed by the pandemic, according to the aforementioned sources. In this regard, they highlighted that the two countries promoted the Special Communiqué on Access to external financing for the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, adopted at the XXVII Ibero-American Summit in April 2021, held in Andorra.
