Spanish business flavour in UAE is in growth mode

Bilateral trade stood at €2b in 2017, top diplomat says

Trade and economic ties between Spain and the UAE are set to increase, as many Spanish firms plan to enter the market, a diplomat and business executives have said.

Bilateral trade stood at €2 billion in 2017 and is expected to go up as more Spanish companies look to export products to the UAE, Spanish ambassador to the UAE Antonio Alvarez Barthe said. “Last year, more than 7,600 Spanish companies exported to the UAE, with more than 2,500 being regular exporters. We see exports growing in the coming years.”

The ambassador said about 200 Spanish companies are currently based in the UAE and Provacuno, Spain’s largest agro-food inter-professional association that represents 85 per cent of the beef sector in the country, is to introduce Spanish beef in the UAE.

“This is an important market because of the volume of the beef they are importing,” said Jose Ramon Godoy, international director of Provacuno. The production of beef in Spain is 700,000 tonnes per year and 200,000 of it is exported, mostly to the European Union. there are also investments from the UAE side into Spain. “In oil and gas and other industrial sectors, some of the big Spanish companies are here. In renewable energy, Spain can be proud of having some of the leading companies in this sector in the world and they are coming here in some huge projects.”

He added that UAE investments are growing in Spain and gave the example of Mubadala Investment owning 100 per cent of energy company Cepsa, which recently announced plans to float its shares on the Spanish stock exchange this year, in what is expected to be one of the largest listings in Spain for over a decade.