The driving drive of public funds | Business | EUROtoday

Spain says goodbye to 2025 because the engine that retains the heart beat in a Europe of unequal speeds. Despite the darkish clouds that persist on the worldwide horizon, the nationwide financial system has managed to keep away from stagnation. Its energy lies in a dynamism that pulls the urge for food of overseas capital and pushes its personal firms in the direction of worldwide growth. This urge for food to proceed advancing seeks to shake the foundations of the manufacturing mannequin to information it in the direction of digitalization, sustainability and employment with higher added worth.

In this modernization mechanism, the Spanish Development Financing Company (Cofides) has turn into an vital piece to grease the financial equipment. Acting as a public supervisor able to figuring out market wants, the entity has redoubled its dedication to overseas projection via consolidated instruments such because the Fund for Foreign Investments (Fiex) and the Fund for Foreign Investment Operations of Small and Medium Enterprises (Fonpyme). But it has additionally assumed a transformative function on our borders. With the administration of the brand new Social Impact Funds (FIS) and co-investment funds (Foco) – nourished with assets from NextGenerationEU –, the establishment funds tasks and channels capital in the direction of a extra revolutionary and sustainable financial system. The establishment manages assets for a complete of 6,000 million euros, which represents a rise of 170% between 2020 and 2025.

“The 2025 balance for Cofides, as a manager of public funds, is very satisfactory,” mentioned Ángela Pérez, president of Cofides, in a gathering organized by EL PAÍS and the public-private state business firm that is dependent upon the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business. “This means that we are more than tripling our activity compared to 2024,” Pérez defined.

In addition, the establishment is implementing a change plan to be extra environment friendly and higher ready for the longer term, incorporating new applied sciences and more and more clear administration of public assets. This occurs in a difficult context, by which geopolitical conflicts, such because the commerce battle, launched by US President Donald Trump, have disrupted the world financial system. “2025 is going to go down in the history of multilateralism and tariff policy, and not exactly for good reasons,” mentioned Marta Blanco, president of the CEOE International Relations Commission. “It is very curious that the word of the year was ‘tariff’. That says a lot about the context we have left behind.”

Although the Spanish financial system has managed to keep away from the bumps within the street, cross-border coverage has been threatened. It isn’t for much less. “The foreign sector represents close to 40% of GDP. Everything that happens internationally is crucial, both in exports and investment,” highlighted the consultant of the employers’ affiliation. For this motive, Blanco added, it’s a precedence to proceed selling the internationalization of Spanish firms to ensure their competitiveness. It is on this context the place the assist of Cofides is greater than a precedence. “It is a fundamental entity to support business internationalization,” Blanco emphasised. Going out by exploring new markets isn’t a purpose per se. The purpose is to do it with strong firms.

“The average size of the Spanish company is well below that of its German or French counterparts,” mentioned Maite Ballester, founding companion of Nexxus Iberia, a enterprise capital fund that helps SMEs of their overseas development. “In that sense, organizations like Cofides have been key. Not only for their support for funds like ours, but also for their direct participation in the financing of specific projects outside the country,” he highlighted. “If we do not increase the average size of the Spanish company, it will be very difficult to compete on a global scale. Scale matters and is always accompanied by greater investment. However, financing this growth is very complicated for an SME, even if it is a leader in Spain in its sector,” Ballester added.

Along with this, Pérez defined that internationalization needs to be seen as a possibility for development. “Today, in most sectors, it is an obligation. Many companies that are not capable of scaling globally have no future.” In addition, he mentioned that the nation must safe its provide chains and have a presence in markets that weren’t so related earlier than. “Traditionally, our portfolio has been concentrated in Latin America, the United States and Europe, but it is necessary to grow in regions such as Asia or Africa, which are often perceived as distant or higher risk markets,” mentioned the president of Cofides. The firm has collected expertise that, in comparison with different types of financing, offers it an added benefit. “He knows very well the reality of the business fabric and the challenges it faces, and it shows. Not only in financial instruments, but also in other areas, such as sustainability,” mentioned Mercedes Valcárcel, common director of SpainNAB, an alliance of organizations that promotes the financial system and affect finance in Spain.

Added worth

“When a company starts working with financiers like Cofides, there is a very relevant added value: they help you identify, highlight and make visible aspects of sustainability or impact that you are often already doing, but that you have not known how to communicate,” mentioned Valcárcel. Thanks to those attributes and its operational solvency, the establishment plans to shut 2025 with a world dedicated portfolio of 4,230 million euros, which represents a year-on-year development of 62%. This dynamism largely responds to the profitable deployment of the Foco and FIS devices, which have reached an implementation stage of 60% in simply 12 months, sustaining the agency goal of allocating the overall capital earlier than August 2026.

Such pace displays the good work capability of the corporate’s groups, who’ve efficiently managed the brand new funds with out neglecting their common exercise. In reality, whereas they had been launching these new tasks, the standard enterprise of supporting the internationalization of Spanish firms continued to develop by 11% to achieve 1,510 million euros, which reveals that the entity can multiply its outcomes and meet all its aims on the similar time. “Cofides has consolidated a way of working that allows us to move forward calmly and with effective, transparent and rigorous management. This is especially relevant when it comes to the management of public resources,” Pérez concluded.