During the first half of this year, more than 500 Spanish companies arrived on the Romanian market and registered a level of invested capital five times higher than in 2006.
"From almost 2,300 Spanish-held companies, 57% were formed within the past two years, with 528 companies formed by July 2007- twice as many as in the same period of 2006, with five times higher capital. If the trend continues, Spain is poised to become one of Romania's major economic partners," stated Rosa M. Sanchez-Yebra, chief economic adviser at the Spanish Embassy.
According to the data provided by the Spanish Embassy, in 2006 the total volume of commercial exchanges between Romania and Spain reached 1.5bn euros, with exports worth 605.80m euros, and imports worth 953m euros. Against the same period in 2005, a 23.05% increase was registered (12.21% for exports and 31.11% for imports).
Spanish investors were the most active on the domestic real estate segment, which in recent years has become an attractive target for many Spanish companies. Spanish investors have shown interest in the acquisition of former industrial platforms located in strategic areas in Bucharest, where they develop residential complexes. The biggest Spanish investors in the domestic real estate industry include Hercesa, Fadesa, Ibiza Construct and GEA Prasa, which are currently carrying out projects worth hundreds of million of euros.
Although most real estate investments are currently directed at Bucharest, companies present on the domestic market have decided to carry out projects in other parts of the country, as well. "Due to the high number of Spanish investors on the Romanian real estate market, La Caixa, one of Spain's top three financial groups, decided to open an office in Bucharest this autumn," added Spain's representative.
Spanish companies also boast a strong presence on the IT&C sector, through INDRA company, and also the food industry, with Campofrio's domestic arm, which is one of top ten domestic makers of meat products.
The Spanish have also tapped into the car industry with ACE (Cluj), CIE-Matricom (Targoviste), MMF (Turda), Mapsa (Turda), Caucho Metal (Sibiu), Bamesa (Pitesti), with the majority of investments directed towards Transylvania.
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