Catalonia’s exports go over 65,000 million euros in 2016, the highest figure so far on record

In order to intensify the internationalization of the Catalan economy and to continue to expand the base of exporting companies, the government has announced the opening of— through Catalonia Trade & Investment—six new Trade and Investment Offices abroad. Specifically, during the first quarter, delegations will be opened in Zagreb (covering the area of the Balkans), Nairobi (Kenya) and Tehran (Iran). In a second phase, before the end of the year offices in Los Angeles (United States), Havana (Cuba) and Amsterdam (Netherlands) will be opened. This will strengthen the network of offices abroad, going from 36 offices to 42, covering 109 markets.

Similarly, Catalonia Trade & Investment will organize and support 138 business missions in 2017, forecasting the participation of over 1,000 companies from all sectors of the Catalan economy: 48 missions are in America, 33 in Europe, 30 in East Africa 27 East and in the Asia Pacific. In total, 59 countries worldwide will be visited.

In fact, trade missions are the tool that the Government uses to expand the base of regular exporting companies: it has been detected that markets where missions had been organized between 2014 and 2016 then show the highest increase in regular exporting companies. This is the case of Colombia, USA, UAE, China, Mexico, Morocco and Algeria, among others.