The Exporters and Investors Club affirms that the deterioration of trade relations with Israel is accelerating
MADRID, 22 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -
Exports from Spain to Israel have fallen by 35.6% in February compared to the previous year, falling to 129.7 million, compared to 201.5 million in February 2023, coinciding with the war between Israel and Gaza, according to The Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors reported this Monday in a statement. In the month of January, Spanish sales to the country fell by 32%.
Thus, the business club has explained that commercial relations between Spain and Israel are "deteriorating at a progressively accelerated rate", indicating that this is "worrying" because Israel was one of the "few" countries in the region with the that Spain presented a trade surplus.
In terms of trade balance, in 2022 Spain presented a surplus in its exchanges with Israel of 1,104.5 million euros, which in 2023 was reduced to 933.3 million and which in the month of February 2024 was only 40. 7 million.
Along the same lines, Spanish exports to Israel have fallen by 11.7% in 2023 in their interannual rate, with a turnover of 1,906.8 million, compared to the 2,158.7 million reached in the previous year.
In this sense, the fall in sales of Spanish products to this Middle Eastern country was concentrated in the last quarter of the year, as a result of the terrorist attacks on October 7 by Hamas against Israel and the "deterioration of diplomatic relations between Spain and Israel", according to the business organization.
The Spanish Exporters and Investors Club has indicated that the "diplomatic crisis" of Spain and Israel can lead to a commercial crisis, as has happened with Algeria since Spain recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in 2022.
"If our companies had been exporting merchandise worth 1,916.6 million euros to Algeria in 2020 and 1,887.7 in 2021, sales in 2022 were reduced to 1,017.8 million and in 2023 they did not even reach 350 million, at be 331.8 million, (compared to imports of 6,424.8 million)", exporters warn.
