MADRID, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Spain's external sector is expected to continue boosting the country's growth in 2018, the International Director of Spain's Chamber of Commerce, Alfredo Bonet, told Xinhua in an interview.
Exports have been one of the main driving forces of the GDP expansion that Spain has experienced over the last years after the 2008 financial crisis seriously hit the country.
"During the crisis many companies exported as a consequence of the lack of domestic demand", Bonet explained, adding that "many companies tried to sell in international markets" their goods and services as a way out of the crisis.
As a consequence, they got a lot of experience selling their products abroad and gained competitiveness, Bonet said, emphasizing that they had already trained in a very competitive market, the European one.
"The European market is our domestic market and it is one of the most competitive markets in the world and our companies have trained there to go abroad afterwards", he said.
"The history of the external sector in Spain over the last years is a story of success, in a few years, we have become one of the countries where the external sector represents a big proportion of the country's production", Bonet said, adding that "nowadays, 34 percent of our GDP comes from exports of goods and services".
"Our exports are increasing more than those of our main European partners, and this proves that this trend is going to continue, and the idea is that it will continue to contribute to the Spanish GDP", Bonet said.
Exports were key for Spain to leave the recession behind and current data indicate that they will continue to play a crucial role in the country's economic growth. Spain's trade deficit stood at 21.07 billion euros up to October, rising by 39.9 percent when compared with the same period of a year earlier.
During that period exports rose by 9.3 percent in the first ten months of the year to 229.8 billion euros when compared with the first 10 months of 2016, a record high according to the Spanish Ministry of Economy.
In 2018 the sector aims at increasing the number of export companies, which currently stand at around 150,000, exporting more to non-EU countries, especially emerging markets, and exporting more innovation and technology rather than goods and services.
