PR, Spain seek to tighten trade ties
By : KEVIN MEAD
Gov. Alejandro García Padilla and other Puerto Rico officials are pitching the island as an ideal place for investment by Spanish companies looking to tap into the U.S. and Latin American markets.
García Padilla met Thursday with Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo at La Fortaleza in Old San Juan, where he touted a “new relationship” between Puerto Rico and the Iberian nation.
“This visit symbolizes the start of a new relationship that gives Puerto Ricans access to Europe and Spaniards access to the Americas,” García Padilla said.
“Puerto Rico has finally decided to leave behind the paradigm that told us that there was only one place to look if we wanted achieve economic development,” the governor said, pointing to the United States, which won the island as war booty from the Spanish-American War in 1898. “Yes we must continue to still looking to the U.S. and Canada, maybe even with even more intensity. But the post-World War II Europe is gone and Europe is on the rise.”
The governor said Spain is positioned as a door to tapping the European Union and its 500,000 consumers as well as North Africa.
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