CAIRO: During his visit to Spain - which began last week - Minister of Foreign Trade and Industry Rachid Mohamed Rachid looked to further extend economic and trade ties with Spain, saying that its unprecedented economic growth offered various opportunities for Egypt's economy to grow as well. Egypt seeks to attract $1 billion worth of Spanish investments over the next five years. Rachid highlighted Spain's boom in real estate investments, which increased by 350 percent, as a concrete opportunity to raise Egypt's exports of building material from $308 to $500 million. Spanish investments in Egypt currently stand at $372 million, across a wide variety of sectors including natural gas, cement, renewable energy, processed food, tourism as well as textiles and ready-made garments. Egypt's ready-made garments and textiles could draw giant fashion houses such as Mango and Zara to open manufacturing bases in the country, said Rachid. Being one of the largest importers of ready-made garments across the EU, Spain seeks to increase imports from North African countries to benefit from their geographical proximity, which can open doors for Egyptian textile companies to form strategic trade ties with Spanish investors. Spain is Egypt's second largest importing country within the European Union and ranks fourth in terms of trade volume with Egypt, importing last year alone around $2 billion worth of goods from Egypt, achieving a surplus in trade balance. Being the ninth strongest economy worldwide and the fifth across the EU, said the minister, the Spanish economy exports the highest levels of capital to trading countries. He added that Spanish investors constantly seek investment opportunities in other countries to benefit from lower production costs, the growing size of these markets, as well as rising economic growth rates.
