Intervention of the President of the Government of Spain during the Closing Session of the 41st Assembly of the Asian Development Bank
Speech by
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Prime Minister of Spain
6 May 2008
Madrid, Spain
Second Vice President of the Government and President of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank, President of the Bank, Governors, ladies and gentlemen,
Firstly, today I would like to express my support and the support of the Spanish Government to the people of Myanmar, for they have been hit by devastation and they have suffered the massive loss of human lives. I do hope that the solidarity of the international community will contribute, decisively and efficiently, to make up for the suffering of so many people and to reconstruct infrastructures, services and houses in a country that is in fact a member of the Asian Development Bank.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very pleased to be here, in the closing session of this Annual Assembly of the Asian Development Bank in Madrid.
I know that over the last few days you have been dealing with important matters related to the future of the Asia-Pacific region and to the activities of the Bank; the representatives of the different countries have taken part in multiple meetings and the different Seminars carried out have been attended by important international personalities.
Thus, these sessions have turned Madrid into an important discussion forum and discussions have been held about economy in the Asia-Pacific region and, in particular, about how to enhance the economic and social development of countries in that region in order to do away with the existing poverty in the area. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you all, for having taken part in this Annual Assembly of the Asian Development Bank, an organisation Spain feels proud to belong to.
Thus, I will be brief, but I would like to mention, at least, three issues that my Government considers especially relevant.
In the first place, I would like to say once more that fighting poverty and contributing to the economic growth and to the sustainable development of poor countries is one of the priorities of the Spanish Government. This is so because, in fact, this is a priority of Spanish society as a whole, for the Spanish society wants our country to contribute actively to eradicate poverty in the world and to make it possible for everyone to enjoy more decent living conditions. This is so, of course, because it is a matter of justice, a basic duty, a matter of solidarity, but also because it is the way to preserve the balance and the safety of all the inhabitants of a world that is irreversibly globalised.
This is the reason why during my previous Legislature, the Official Development Assistance, which contemplates the contributions channelled through multilateral development banks, such as the Asian Bank, has more than doubled, passing from 0.22% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2004 to 0.5% in the budgets for 2008.
Our aim is to increase such assistance up to 0.7% of the Gross Domestic Product, over the next four years, reaching approximately 10,000 million Euros. We are also aware that this effort will be useless if we are not able to stay in tune with other donors and with the policies, strategies and criteria of the beneficiary countries. In this sense, multilateral development banks are excellent instruments to coordinate efforts and to channel resources.
Besides, I would also like to emphasise that from our point of view, as far as cooperation for development is concerned, the private sector plays an important role. Today, here, there are representatives of numerous, very important Spanish companies and sectors that have proved their great technical, organizational capacity abroad. It has been thanks to such capacity that they have been able to enter the main international markets, turning Spain into the third biggest direct investor in the world, reaching 7% of the world's direct investments in 2007, only behind the USA and France.
The growing internationalisation of our economy goes hand in hand with the great modernisation of Spanish economy over the last decades. Our opening towards foreign markets, the economic integration with neighbouring countries, the implementation of rigorous economic policies and the adoption of modernising reforms have brought about a greater welfare and social cohesion, at all levels.
Many countries in Asia and in the Pacific region are also implementing this development strategy and quite successfully too, as is proved by their high economic growth rates.
As we move on in the road towards development, it is always good to benefit from the experience and capacities of investors from different countries. And I am sure that the Spanish private sector can offer interesting possibilities for cooperation and joint work to governments, companies and civil societies of the countries in this region, as well as to the multilateral development institutions. So I hope.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise the growing relevance of Asia in the international economic arena and Spain's need to increase its presence in that continent.
In fact, the tendencies observed as far as its economic growth is concerned since 1980 and, specially, over the last decade, are simply amazing. During the previous five years, the Asian continent has been responsible for nearly 35% of the global growth and its importance as far as international trade is concerned amounts almost to 30 per cent of the total. Besides, the region has become an important savings' exporter, helping to make up for the financial needs of other economies and contributing to the lessening of the turbulences of the international financial system.
Besides, Spanish commercial and investment exchanges with Asian countries are growing quite rapidly, although they still fall short of their potential level. The accumulated Spanish investments in this region, from the beginning of the 1990s, amount to 2,300 million Euros, which is quite a modest figure. But their evolution is highly positive, for -in 2007- 750 million Euros were invested, one third of the aforementioned accumulated amount.
We have no doubts: given the great dynamism of Asian economies and their highly promising future, Asia is a preferential area and it must be given pre-eminence as far as the internationalization of Spanish economy is concerned.
These are the reasons why my Government has implemented an ambitious Asia-Pacific Action Plan over the last few years, in order to guarantee the presence of Spain in a region that from the point of view of economy, politics and strategy will manage the future of the universe.
Our strategy concerning the Asia-Pacific region is not just circumscribed to the promotion of our companies. Asia is the centre of gravity of worldwide balance. It involves an effort connected to the desires of different sectors of Spanish society that would like Asia to become, together with Latin America, Europe and the Mediterranean, one of the factors to determine the international position of Spain as a power with global interests, over the next few years.
With the Action Plan Asia-Pacific, the Government has definitively turned Asia into one of the priorities of our foreign policy. We are making unprecedented efforts in order to set up new Embassies: two new ones are already operating (in Kabul and Wellington) and one more has been opened up in Dhaka and in the near future we will open two more: in Phnom Penh and Colombo, which means that the number of Spanish Embassies will increase by 40% in this area from the beginning of this Legislature. And we must also consider the General Consulates, the Commercial Offices, the Offices of Defence and Interior Policy and the six Cervantes Institutes; one of them has already been inaugurated in Beijing, there is another one, fully operative, in Tokyo and the ones in Shanghai, Seoul, Delhi and Sydney will open soon.
Thus, we are turning our conviction that Spain's projection in Asia-Pacific is one of our main assets in foreign policy into a pragmatic fact, for Spanish foreign policy has a vocation for globalism and pragmatism.
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, if we combine these three factors that I have just mentioned, that is, the fact that cooperation for development is a priority for the Spanish Government, the fact that the private sector is a key sector and it must be taken into account in development strategies and the fact that Asia and the Pacific are Spain's strategic choice, we may draw the following conclusion: the growing interrelation between our governments, companies and institutions can only generate benefits, and the Asian Development Bank plays an important role as a linking bridge between them all.
Once more, thank you very much for being here, in Madrid, for the success of this Assembly and good luck to you all.
Thank you very much.
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