Spain aims to strengthen China trade ties

CGTN Europe

Tariffs dominated talks between Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who maintains there is no winner in tariff war.  Sanchez welcomed recent Chinese investment, signing a series of new deals on trade and technology. Sanchez said that Spain and the EU are willing to strengthen communication and coordination with China.   CGTN’s correspondent Ken Browne has more details.  #CGTN #EU #Spain #China

Transcript

00:00Yes, Ali, well I think we heard a lot of it already earlier. It's pretty clear what Spain wants from this visit.

00:07The meeting between the two leaders earlier, Sanchez said, following some warnings from Washington on Wednesday,

00:17warning Spain and the EU about getting closer to China. Well, that's exactly what they're going to do, according to Sanchez.

00:24He said that their foreign policy wasn't against anyone. It was in favor of multilateralism, of understanding and of trade.

00:33And trade between China and Spain has been rapidly increasing and improving over the past decade, in the past two to three years even.

00:41We've seen 10 billion U.S. dollars of investment from Chinese companies in green hydrogen projects in the south,

00:48in a car factory in Barcelona, half a billion dollars from Cherry to build cars in the old Nissan factory there.

00:56Spain's biggest solar power plant was just bought by China Three Gorges, massive energy company for half a billion U.S. dollars.

01:04And the biggest one, some five billion dollars with CATL, the world's biggest and best-selling EV electric car battery maker,

01:14along with Stellantis, another automobile giant. They're making a huge gigafactory in Zaragoza to make some one million EV batteries,

01:24electric car batteries by 2028, employing some 3,000 people. So Sanchez and the Spanish government, what they want is simple.

01:32They want more. They want more investment from China. They're looking at BYD and MG factories,

01:38two huge electric car brands that are really popular coming out of China now.

01:43And there is a bit of an imbalance between these two countries. If you look at the numbers,

01:48China buys around $8 billion worth of goods from Spain every year. Spain buys close to $50 billion.

01:56So that's quite a big trade imbalance. But that is not as bad as it sounds, really, when you look at other things like services.

02:03Chinese tourists spend a lot more money in Spain than Spanish tourists spend in China, for example.

02:09So very simple what Spain wants. They want more investment. They want closer ties economically and politically.

02:17That's what we're hearing here in Spain today, Sally.

02:20That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:21That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:22That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:23That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:24That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:25That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:26That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:27That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:28That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:29That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:30That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:31That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:32That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:33That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:34That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

02:35That's what we're hearing here in Spain today.

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