“Spain will do everything it needs to do,” says the minister of Industry to investors

By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The second edition of the Spain Investor’s Day started on Wednesday. This event presents itself as

“a unique project in Spain, the great personal encounter of the global investor with Spanish issuers and businesses. Its permanent objective is to present Spain at its highest level as the investors’ destination”.

The meeting gathers major listed companies and major institutional investors in order to generate contacts, knowledge and basically trust. The purpose, therefore, is that international investors get to know 80% of the Spanish listed market in 36 hours, according to its organisers.

During this second edition of the Investor’s Day, 200 international investors met with 34 major Spanish companies as opposed to the 32 that met last year.

José Manuel Soria, recently appointed Minister of Industry, was responsible for the inauguration and in his speech he expressed his interest in Spain offering the investor “fiscal sustainability”, competitiveness and “stable and reliable” frameworks.

“This is a serious country and we will do everything that needs to be done” assured Mr Soria.

The minister also alluded to the financial restructuring that the government is preparing and whose priority is cleaning up the banks’ balance sheets as well as the reform of the labour market, which was described as “too fragmented”; and, the readjustment of the regulation of the Spanish energy system in order to contain a tariff deficit which already amounts to €24 billion.

The minister addressed the meeting attendees in “perfect English”, the Spanish business daily Cinco Días reported.