The South African market has been included as one of Spain’s 16 “priority markets” as the European country intensifies its efforts to raise exports in the wake of the global economic crisis and as its companies move to diversify their foreign direct investments to “dynamic” regions.

Speaking at the inaugural Spain-Southern Africa Investment and Business Cooperation Forum in Johannesburg on Tuesday, ICEX Spain Trade and Investment CEO Francisco Javier Garzón said South Africa was the only sub-Saharan Africa country included in the list of priority markets.

But he stressed that Spanish companies – 25 of which were participating in the three-day trade and investment mission to South Africa – were also increasingly interested in the opportunities arising across the Southern Africa region.

In 2014, some 4 000 Spanish companies sold goods to South Africa, with Spanish exports to the country having more than doubled since 2009.

However, Garzón stressed that Spanish companies had also emerged as leading investors, particularly in the renewable-energy sector, with Spanish companies having been awarded several of the wind and solar projects arising from the South Africa Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP).

In total, 92 renewables projects, with a combined nameplate capacity of 5 243 MW, have been procured under the REIPPPP, generating investment commitments of close to R200-billion.

Spain, Garzón said, had emerged as the country’s fifth-largest foreign direct investor and its third largest European Union investor, after the UK and Germany.

“In recent years, our firms have progressively diversified their portfolios and turned their heads to the most dynamic areas of the globe,” he said, while indicating that Africa’s youthful population, rapid urbanisation and vast natural resources made it an increasingly attractive destination.

“In this context, South Africa is a particularly interesting country since it combines market size and growth potential with stability and sound macroeconomic management, [while] the rest of Southern Africa also shows promising growth and growing opportunities.”

Spanish Ambassador to South Africa Juan Sell praised the efforts of Spanish companies, which “even when handicapped by our own crisis” had embarked on ambitious trade and investment activities.

Sell argued that these efforts had been key to turning around the fortunes of the country, which had started recording current account surpluses since 2013, having consistently reported deficits since the 1990s.

He said efforts were being made to educate Spanish companies about the opportunities and idiosyncrasies of the South African market, including the imperatives of job creation, localisation and black economic empowerment.

Department of Trade and Industry investment promotion head Yunus Hoosen encouraged Spanish investors to embrace South Africa’s “four P’s” of: preparing for localisation, preparing for empowerment, preparing for skills development and preparing to support national and regional supply chains.

This point was emphasised by African National Congress treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, who said that all African Union countries, including South Africa, were keen to use their investments in infrastructure to stimulate industrialisation across the continent.

Mkhize argued that South Africa was ideally positioned to offer Spanish companies a platform from which to pursue the infrastructure opportunities that were expected to arise in the energy, transport and water sectors.

These opportunities would grow, he argued, as the ‘Cape-to-Cairo’ free trade arrangement involving 26 African countries was implemented in the coming months and expanded, over time, to encompass all of the continent’s 54 countries.