The long relationship between Italian companies and the Spanish market is in good health. This is the main conclusion of the first Barometer on the climate and prospects of Italian investments in Spain, carried out by the Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Spain (Ccis), in collaboration with Analistas Financieros Interncionales (Afi) under the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Spain, where it was presented on Thursday evening. It reveals a constant and growing climate of confidence: 50% of companies in the Iberian country expect to increase their investments in 2024. And 9 out of 10 companies (90%) consider Spain a strategic platform for their business in Latin America (27.6%) and Portugal (25.9%), as Diego Vizcaino, associate director of Applied Economics at Afi, explained during the presentation. In addition to the favourable expectations, 75 per cent of the companies assess the business climate in Spain positively, particularly in aspects of quality of life, the development of sustainability practices and the level of digitisation.
"The Barometer is a very useful tool to trace a historical path of Italian investment flows to Spain" and to "recognise the positive effects these have had on production and job creation, with almost 103,000 jobs estimated," noted Ambassador Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi. He hoped that the study could become "a fixed and highly qualifying milestone in economic and entrepreneurial relations between Italy and Spain, together with the Tiepolo Prize" organised every year by the Ccis and the Confederation of Industrialists (Ceoe).
"We really hope that the Barometer will become the compass to encourage strategic decision-making by all those companies that have understood that success inevitably passes through internationalisation processes," echoed Marco Pizzi, the president of Ccis, which has over 300 member companies.
Italy was the fifth largest economy in Spain in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in 2021, with around EUR 47 billion. The increase in the stock was concentrated in the supply of electricity, gas, steam and air, while the biggest drop was in civil engineering, reports the barometer. "For Spain, Italy is the fifth country of investments, with the presence of 422 companies surveyed, but that could be twice as many with those that are not," reported the Secretary of State for Commerce, Maria Amparo Lopez Senovilla during the presentation. And she anticipated that a similar barometer on Spanish investments in Italy would be presented on 26 June at the Spanish embassy in Rome. In closing, a round table was held between some of the protagonists of the Italian industrial fabric operating in Spain.
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