Modi urges Spanish firms to invest in India

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged Spanish firms to invest in India, saying the fast-growing country’s massive infrastructure programme offered them “many opportunities”.

“India is an enormous country and it offers many opportunities to Spanish firms in all sectors,” he said before holding talks with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid.

The two countries notably signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of cyber security during Modi’s visit as well as a prisoner exchange agreement.

Spanish firms are well positioned to take advantage of a massive infrastructure programme which his government has launched, Modi said in an interview published in Spanish business daily Expansion.

India plans to build six large ports, 250 new airports and 27,000 kilometres (16,800 miles) of highway, and modernise 400 train stations by 2025, he said.

The country has also bet strongly on renewable energy.

As a signatory to the Paris Agreement on climate change, India is committed to ensuring that at least 40 percent of its electricity will be generated from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030.

“Spanish firms are global leaders in sectors that are a priority for us. We want to attract tourism, infrastructure, energy and defence firms,” he told the newspaper.

After holding talks with Rajoy, Modi met with the heads of top Spanish firms behind closed doors to encourage them to explore investment opportunities in India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy.

Renewable energy groups Abengoa and Gamesa, infrastructure firm Acciona, train maker Talgo, state-owned shipbuilder Navantia and technology company Indra were among the firms represented.

Modi, who arrived in Spain late on Tuesday from Germany, his first stop on a four-nation Europe tour, also met with King Felipe VI before departing for Russia.

His tour also leads him to France — but not to former colonial power Britain.

Britain, which is set to leave the EU by 2019, wants to boost trade with India, which is meanwhile also trying to revive stalled, decade-old trade talks with the EU.

Spain is India’s seventh largest trading partner in the European Union.

Two-way trade totalled 4.72 billion euros ($5.27 billion) in 2016, an 8.5 percent increase over the previous year, of which Spanish exports made up nearly 1.26 billion euros.

The number of Spanish firms that operate in India has risen to over 230 currently from just 70 in 2008.

“Our bilateral relations are becoming more and more intense. I hope this visit spurs deeper ties between our two countries,” Rajoy said.

It was the first visit by an Indian prime minister to Spain since the late Narashima Rao travel to the country in 1992.

ds/mck/mt